Abstract
Focusing on historical moments in society, we find that the concept of health has altered not only with medical theories but also according to political and economic circumstances, and the concept of the body. When Japanese physicians studied the Western medical science in the early 19th century, they had to coin the new word kenko to translate a physiological concept in which all parts of the body, including organs and tissues, function in harmony and without any problem. Kenko has the same meaning as English word health" in contemporary Japan, but it had been regarded as a medical term until the end of Edo Period. Yukichi Fukuzawa, the most famous leader of the Meiji Era, enlightened people by frequently using the word kenko in his books and papers and popularized it. In the late 19th century, he redefined the concept of kenko as a tough body sufficiently resilient to overcome epidemics or social unrest to meet the political demands of the Japanese government. While Japan was struggling to modernize its society and catch up with the West after the Meiji Restoration, the concept of kenko was used as a tool to conquer poverty and encourage ordinary people, an important resource for establishing an industrialized country and a strong military. It is now necessary to reconstruct the concept of kenko on the basis of the appropriate relationship between the people's contribution and governmental support for maintaining public health. A positive concept of kenko, which encourages an active attitude toward exercise, should be changed to a negative one which discourages people from engaging in dangerous or harmful behavior. Such a negative concept of kenko would protect individual liberty against social intervention which would demand them to contribute to the state.
