In the US, 50% of children are considered to be obese whereas that of Japan is 8% on the average.  The highest is 13% and it is recorded in remote rural areas.  Those percentages show that we don’t have as many obese children as in US.  But considering the fact that the number of obese children (boys) in Japan over the last 20 years has increased from 6% to 12%, I cannot deny that there is a significant change in our diet.  We are likely to eat more and more western-style foods, and at the same time, more and more people tend not to eat full meals in the morning.  Fortunately, there seems to be a trend that the number of obese children has been decreasing since 2006.  I feel so pleased to know it. 

As I wrote an article in this blog a while ago, there is a movement to improve food education through local administrations and school lunch system.  Luckily, this movement has been spreading all through Japan.  To my great pleasure, the movement has an obvious effect on reducing numbers of obese children.

But isn’t it strange that we find more obese children in rural areas where there are more nature left than the big cities with less open areas for children to play? 

The answer is because children do not play outside for hours in the nature by themselves as often as they used to do 20 years ago.  In addition, it is more likely to find working parents in rural areas so children are often taken care of by their grandmothers who may believe that it is the loving care to give children sweets and juice.

Also, when children want to go out to play soccer or any other sports, it is natural for the parents to drive back and forth for children.  City children, on the other hand, must walk to wherever they need to go.  Therefore, children in rural areas do not walk as much as city children. 

If the income level continues to show a tendency to decline year after year, both parents may have to work longer.  I can imagine that the delivered pizza, snacks, games may be all over the house when mothers come home exhausted form work.  In order to restore the small rural areas where children can play around energetically, we, the adults are in great demand to think more critically and act accordingly.