Obesity rates among Japanese school students have started falling after they climbed sharply between the end of 2019 and throughout 2020.

According to an annual survey conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), obesity rates for year 6 elementary school students fell 0.4 points to 10.9 percent; year 3 junior high school students 0.6 points to 9 percent; and year 3 high school students dropped a full point to 9 percent.

The National Center for Child Development and Health (NHCCD) also suggest that food was a big part. Without school-provided meals in elementary schools and carefully-made bento lunchboxes in junior high and high school, kids were more prone to choosing snacks over nutritious foods during Japan’s “soft lockdowns”. But now that schools are running in-person and on schedule, students’ eating habits are easing back into the norm.

What hasn’t changed since the pandemic began in early 2020, unfortunately, is students’ worsening eyesight. In a survey that included over 3,330,000 students, results found that 36.7 percent of elementary school students had impaired vision, and that number jumped to 60.7 percent among junior high students–the worst it’s been since the 1970s. ...continue reading