The objective of the present study was to elucidate changes in trends in public opinion on the School Lunch Program by focusing on newspaper articles and investigating the numbers of articles before and after revision of the School Lunch Program Act.
Newspaper articles were collected using the Asahi Shimbun’s online article database “Kikuzo II Visual”, and the numbers of articles were compared using the t-test. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS 21.0 for Windows.
The mean number of articles per year (±standard deviation) was 55±11 before and 71±14 after revision of the School Lunch Program Act, indicating a tendency toward a significant increase in the number of articles after revision (p<0.1).
The results showed approximately a 30% increase in the number of articles after revision of the School Lunch Program Act compared to before revision, and this finding was thought to indicate an increase in societal concern regarding measures for the School Lunch Program.

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