Senior high school students (15-16 years old; 399 boys, 509 girls) were asked to answer a questionnaire on constipation and awareness of food and health. If they had a bowel movement less than three times a week, they were considered to be suffering from constipation.
1) Of the respondents, 16% of the boys and 19% of the girls were found to suffer from constipation. Of those with regular bowel movements, there were more boys (54%) than girls (27%), with the difference being significant (p<0.001). Both boys (68%) and girls (83%) considered that constipation affected their health. When asked about bowel movements, 68% of the boys and 60% of the girls answered that they believed that they should have them every day. The time for bowel movement was between the time when they arose and after breakfast for 69% of the boys and 46% of the girls. A correlation was found between the time of defecation and the degree of constipation (p<0.001).
2) When questioned about food and health, 55% of the boys and 61% of the girls considered their food intake sufficient to maintain their health. However, only 26% of the boys and 27% of the girls said that they knew about their food intake requirements. A correlation was found between the awareness of food intake and the degree of constipation among the girls (p<0.05).
3) More boys than girls considered their food intake to be “large” or “did not know” the volume of their food intake, while female students considered their intake to be “average” (p<0.05). A higher correlation between awareness of food intake requirements and degree of constipation was found for the boys. Among the boys, many who suffered from constipation indicated that they “did not know” how much cereal, potato and vegetables they consumed. Among the girls, many reported consumption of only a small amount of vegetables and milk products.

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The relationship among milk drinking habit, nutrient intake patterns, and food intake patterns was studied between two middle-aged groups: (1) full time workers (212 couples aged between 40 and 50), and (2) farmers (196 couples aged between 40 and 60) in Kyushu and the following results were obtained.
1) As for milk drinking habit of the first group, those who drink milk regularly accounted for 35.4% of the husbands and 27.8% of the wives, and those who did not (less than twice a week) accounted for 34.0% of the former and 39.2% of the latter. As for the second group, those who drink milk regularly accounted for 29.6% of the husbands and 27.0% of the wives, and those who did not accounted for 29.6% of the former and 31.1% of the latter. Milk intake per day obtained from a 3-day dietary survey was 72g for the husbands and 66g for the wives of the first group, and 46g for the husbands and 48g for the wives of the second group.
2) As for nutrient intake, those with the regular milk drinking habit showed high values for calcium intake, sufficiency rate, animal fat intake and energy percentage of fats, and low values for energy percentage of carbohydrate.
3) The result of multiple regression analysis revealed that milk contributed to calcium intake irrespective of its regular drinking habit among the full time workers, while its contribution was recognized only among regular milk drinkers among the farmers. Foods which are the calcium sources other than milk are legumes, algae, green and yellow vegetables and pale colored vegetables. Their contribution to calcium intake differed depending on the milk drinking habit.
4) As for the food intake patterns, the milk drinking habit was pointed to be easily linked to simplified meal taking among husbands and to western style meals among wives in both groups.

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[in Japanese]

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