2015 年 9 巻 2 号 p. 207-219
Poor dietary behavior among elementary school students in Japan has recently become a cause of concern. Kyoto’s traditional food culture is well known for its healthy, high quality, seasonal ingredients, and thus increased awareness among students may promote improvements in their dietary behavior. Therefore, we developed a shokuiku (food education) program consisting of a series of lectures and practical sessions based on Kyoto’s food culture. We then conducted the program on total of 20 classes of sixth-grade students in a public elementary school in Kyoto to investigate whether increased awareness of the benefits of Kyoto’s food culture would improve their dietary behavior.
After the program, we assessed a number of factors related to dietary behavior. Among these factors, we found that the percentage of students who were able to savor meals using all 5 senses increased from 29.7% to 79.0%, and the percentage of students who paid more attention to table manners at mealtime increased from 10.9% to 40.3%. Furthermore, they came to view Kyoto’s food culture, which is representative of Japan, i.e., having a beautiful seasonal presentation, a spirit of treasuring the inherent color and flavor of the ingredients, and accompanied by a spirit of hospitality known as motenashi no kokoro, as beneficial. More than 90% of the students reported appreciating Kyoto’s food culture and feeling a sense of pride to be residents of the city. They also considered motenashi no kokoro to be its most important principle. In addition, a questionnaire conducted on the students’ parents (response rate, 66.2%) showed that over 50% observed an increase in their child’s interest in cooking and daily dietary habits at home. A separate questionnaire conducted on school teachers showed that the shokuiku program was suitable and effective for sixth-grade students, and that a visit to a restaurant specializing in Kyo-ryori, the cuisine of Kyoto, which was part of the program, allowed the students to reflect on what they had learned at school and to develop more interest in the benefits of Kyoto’s food culture. Moreover, they developed an awareness of healthy dietary behavior.
These results suggest that shokuiku programs can improve dietary behavior in elementary school students.
