Objective: This study tried and evaluated the courses to help mothers who are mainly responsible for cooking at home acquire knowledge, attitudes, and skills on desirable diet and health management and apply to health for families who need the prevention of metabolic syndrome.

Methods: Diet and health education courses were provided to 29 kindergartener’s mothers in two kindergartens and held for a total of 5 times between September and November in 2012. The contents of the courses were diet management (menu planning, food selection, cooking skills) and parent-child exercises. The evaluation of the courses was conducted through a self-administered survey distributed before and after the courses. Statistical analyzes were performed of 26 mothers that completed survey before and after.

Results: The percentage of mothers who correctly understood about metabolic syndrome was 42.3% before the courses, while it was 88.5% after the courses. The percentage of mothers who thought that it was “very important” to take vegetable dishes 2‒3 times a day for diet and health management was 46.2% before the courses, while it was 76.9% after the courses. In addition, the percentage of mothers who did it in daily meals was 30.8% before the courses, while it was 50.0% after the courses. The percentage of mothers who thought that it was “important” to plan devised menu food selection and cooking method was 34.6% before the courses, while it was 53.8% after the courses. In addition, the percentage of mothers who hardly practice it in daily meals was 53.8% before the courses, while it was 19.2% after the courses. The percentage of mothers who stated that “they have cooking skills for diet and health management for themselves and their family” was 19.2% before the courses, while it was 46.2% after the courses.

Conclusions: The courses in this study was suggested as diet and health education that mothers understood correctly about metabolic syndrome, acquired the proactive attitudes necessary for diet and health management for themselves and their family and practiced the skills they gained during the courses in daily life.

  The field of Japanese school education has been worrying about children's fatigue for many years. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to clarify the condition of fatigue subjective symptoms (FSS) in schoolchildren. In addition, it was similarly aimed for extracting the related factors of FSS in junior high school students. Subjects of this study were 21,332 elementary school students and 10,617 junior high school students. The investigation was carried out by questionnaire including the 'Questionnaire of Subjective Symptoms' in March 2015. The results are summarized as follows; 1) It was shown by Two-way ANOVA in consideration of gender and grade factor that total score of the FSS was significantly increased with grade progress and females. 2) Moreover, by Three-way ANOVA in consideration of gender, grade stage and fatigue factor, it was confirmed that there were the most appeals of 'Feeling of Sleepiness.' 3) On the other hand, it was extracted by the multivariate logistic regression using the data of junior high school students that the creation of “Feeling of Sleepiness” were gender and living condition, such as sleep hours, breakfast intake, physical activity after school, video game hours, mobile phone hours and PC hours.

  From the above-mentioned facts, we reached the conclusion that actions such as an everyday breakfast intake, a security of enough sleeps, a security of enough physical activity, a control in screen time and so on were necessary for the reduction of the FSS of the children.

  This study aimed to assess what children learned from the “Succession of Life” health education sessions taught by midwives in the Great East Japan Earthquake. The study analyzed the essays written by children who attended the sessions, identifying 13 subcategories of learning, which were grouped into 6 categories. These 6 categories are “acquisition of knowledge about the process from fertilization to birth,” “increased appreciation for continuity of life,” “strong gratitude for mothers who bore and raised children, and people around them,” “acquisition of values that honor life,” “nurturing of maternal sense, leading to imagination of one’s future self,” and “awareness of physical and mental changes in growing to adulthood.” Among them, “acquisition of values that honor life” and “imagination of one’s future self, based on nurturing of maternal sense” were categories that had not been represented in essays prior to the earthquake.