Japanese Health and Nutrition information

Health Promotion

Dietary Guidelines

Enjoy your meals

・Have delicious and healthy meals that are good for your mind and body.
・Achieve a longer healthy life through your daily meals.
・Enjoy communication at the table with your family and/or other people and participate in preparation of meals.

Establish a healthy rhythm by taking regular meals.

・Have breakfast to make a good start of the day.
・Avoid large amount of snacks before bedtime and between meals.
・Do not take too much alcohol

Eat well-balanced meals with staple food, main dishes and side dishes.

・Combine various foods.
・Cook meals in various ways.
・Combine home-made meals well with eating out, eating processed and prepared foods.

Eat enough grains such as rice and other cereals.

・Eat grains every day to maintain adequate energy intake from carbohydrate.
・Utilize grains such as rice and other cereals, suited to Japan's climate and soil conditions.

Combine vegetables, fruits, milk products, beans and fish in your diet.

・Eat plenty of vegetables and fruits everyday to get vitamins, minerals and dietary fibers.
・Drink milk and eat green/yellow vegetables, beans, and small fish to get a sufficient amount of calcium intake.

Avoid too much salt and fat.

・Avoid salty foods and reduce the amount of salt intake to less than 10 g per day.
・Avoid oily and fatty foods and make a balanced choice of fat derived from animal, plant, and fish.
・Check nutrition labels for choosing foods and selecting menus.

Learn your healthy body weight and balance the energy intake with physical activity (energy expenditure).

・Weigh yourself whenn you feel that you have gained some weight.
・Acquire the habit of practicing exercise.
・Good health is essential to beauty. Do not attempt to lose too much weight.
・Chew your food well and do not eat too fast.

Take advantage of your food culture and local food products, with incorporating new and different dishes.

・Enjoy natural bounty and change of seasons by using local food products and ingredients in seasons, with incorporating holiday and special dishes.
・Respect your food culture and apply it to daily diet.
・Acquire knowledge of foods and cooking.
・Try new foods and dishes.

Reduce leftovers and waste through proper cooking and storage methods.

・Avoid buying and cooking too much food. Try to gauge how much food you need to avoid leftovers.
・Note "best before date" and "use-by date" on food products.
・Check the foods in your refrigerator and cupboards regularly and try to create menus that maximize what you have.

Assess your daily diet.

・Set your own health goals and have a habit to assess your diet.
・Think and talk about your diet with your family and friends.
・Learn and practice healthy dietary habits at school and at home.
・Place importance on appropriate eating habits from an early stage of life.

Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top

Rest Guidelines

Create a rhythm in your life
Notice your stress at early stage
Barometer for sleep is pleasant wake-up
The body and heart is refreshed by taking a bath
Take a trip and switch your mind
Increase efficiency and prevent overwork, by balancing rest and work

Take leisure time and enough rest
Have your own time for 30 minutes in a day
Utilize holiday time for real rest
Find pleasure and motivation to live in your leisure time

Take oasis into your life
Place importance on relaxation in your daily life
Have variety in your meal place
Feel healthy spirit by putting yourself in nature

Enrich your life by meeting and strengthening bonds with others
Find pleasant and reasonable social participation
Have creative life cherished in bonds with others

Sleep Guidelines

Healthy life with comfortable sleep
Recover from fatigue, alleviate stress and prevent accident by taking comfortable sleep
Sleep difficulty increase the risk of having lifestyler-elated diseases, such as hypertension, heart diseases and apoplexy.
Lifestyle bringing comfortable sleep
Regular exercise brings deep sleep
Breakfast is important for waking your mind and body from sleep. If you have midnight snack, don't eat much

Adequate sleep differs by person: being energetic during daytime is a barometer of comfortable sleep
Most suitable sleep hours differs by person, and do not stick to 8 hours
Spending long time in bed reduces the feelingness of deep sleep
Suitable sleep hours will be shorter, as you get older

Have comfortable sleep by yourself
The caffeine intake after supper worsens falling asleep
"Nightcap as a hypnotic" worsens the quality of sleep
Environment building to prevent unpleasant sound and light, and to have bedding which fits you

Relax yourself before sleeping: willingness to sleep make you awake
Relaxation by reading, listening to music, lighting incense and exercising stretch, etc.
Go to bed after getting sleepy by yourself. Intension to sleep brings the opposite effect
Taking a tepid bath makes you easy to fall asleep

Turn on your biological clock by taking sunlight in your room when you wake up
Wake up at the same time every day
Early rise brings early to bed
Staying in bed till late on your holiday makes it hard to get up in the next morning

Overcome your sleepiness in the afternoon
Refresh by short nap, for 20-30 minutes before 3:00 pm
Taking nap after evening affects sleep at night
Taking too long nap may causes blank

Consulte sleep disorder with a specialist
Sleep disorder may be a sign of "physical or mental diseases"
Special attention is needed if you can't fall asleep quickly or if you can not feel sound sleep or if you keep felling sleepy during dayytime even you take enough sleep
Special attention is also needed on the heavy snore, restless leg and teeth grinding

Japanese Health and Nutrition information

Health Promotion

Dietary Guidelines

Rest Guidelines

Sleep Guidelines

Dietary Reference Intakes for Japanese

National Health and Nutrition Survey

Food and Nutrition Education

School Lunch

Food safety