A comprehensive assessment of factors affecting obesity in Japan and their implications for global health

2018 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17F17824
• Research Institution: St. Luke's International University
• Principal Investigator: ギルモー スチュアート 聖路加国際大学, 専門職大学院公衆衛生学研究科(公衆衛生大学院), 教授 (20608913)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): NIKOLAOU CHAROULA 聖路加国際大学, 専門職大学院公衆衛生学研究科(公衆衛生大学院), 外国人特別研究員
• Project Period (FY): 2017-11-10 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 栄養疫学 / 栄養環境

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

Since the last report, we completed our analysis of the agricultural policies of Japan, Europe, Australia, USA, and Korea that revealed significant differences between the counties and possible effects on the availability of food because of these. The manuscript for this work had also been written and we are going to distribute it with the collaborators we had identified during the first phase of the project for comments before submission to a journal for publication. Another key area for further analysis was identified through this report in relation to food content.

Over the past year we have gathered data from multiple sources. We are about to complete the data collection for the comparison of the nutrition content of products available in vending machines in Japan and in other 22 countries. We also got hold of the data of the sales of all food products sold in convenience and supermarket in Kanto area for the past 2 years. As part of this research we continue the work on the differences between food based dietary guidelines between Japan, EU, US, and Australia and the manuscript on this work is about to be completed. One member of the team has visited the USA and obtained food consumption data that can be used for comparative analysis of dietary practices.

Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

Data collection has been copmrehensive and we have identified more sources of data than expected in the original application. We applied to the Ministry of Health in Japan to get access to the data from Nutrition and Health Survey since the start of the survey in 1946 to date with a view of devising a Japanese and traditional diet index connected with the work on food based dietary guidelines. Once this is done we will have a large and diverse range of data to use for analyses in the last stage of the study.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

In the last 6 months we will complete the analysis of National Health and Nutrition Survey data, and use this to establish a comprehensive measure of the nature of food environments in Japan and how they have changed over time. We will also develop mechanisms for assessing adherence to food guidelines, and use this to assess the level of adherence to food guidelines in Japan and the quality of food intake.