Objective: To examine the psychosocial predictors of excessive eating of snacks by junior high school students using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) .
Method: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey on excessive eating of snack of 1, 936 junior high school students. The questionnaire included questions about attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, behavioral intention, snack-eating behavior, and ways of coping with it.
Results: The response rate was 93% (n=1, 796) . The subjectively described physical symptoms of the students who ate snacks excessively were worse than those of the students who did not. Multiple regressions based on the TPB showed that the attitude of boys and girls was the strongest predictor of behavioral intention. (boys: β=.44, girls: β=.34) . The score for each attitude item dif-fered between boys and girls. The boys stated that ‘cost’ was the most important factor when they ate snacks, while the girls answered‘weight gain’.The students who tried to cope with overeating snack problem had higher perceived behavioral control than the students who did not.
Discussion: The findings suggested that nutrition education program should consider the differences in their attitudes between boys and girls. In addition, promoting skill training in nutrition education might be more effective for preventing excessive eating of snacks than simply inculcating knowledge about snacks, such as calories and nutrition.

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Purpose: In order to seek better policies for improvement of quality of the community health care professionals, investigate that what kinds of situations in their own life and working environment are making community health nurses and nutritionists feeling powerless.
Method: From November to December 2001, self-administered questionnaires were mailed to 495 health nurses and nutritionists who were working for T prefecture and cities, towns and villages of T prefecture. Collection rate was 88.9%.
Results:
1. About 60% of the research participants had experience of breakdown of working morale. They were questioning efficacy of their work and were feeling powerless and stuck in a rut. On the other hand, 95% of the research participants were taking positive coping behaviors when they face difficulties in their daily work.
2. Reasons for the powerlessness were; heavy workload and lack of understanding of their supervisors. Kinds of support they wanted were; understanding from their co-workers and supervisors and working environment which they can think collaboratively.
3. For those who had high self-esteem answered that they felt that they could accomplish tasks by observing someone close had accomplished the same tasks (substitute experiences) or had been verbally encouraged and supported (verbal praises) by their supervisors or co-workers.
4. In general, self confidence about work performances correlates with years of experience except “data analysis using personal computers”.
Conclusion: From these results, it was confirmed that the support systems at work places and on the job trainings/guidance were necessary in order to improve work performances of the community health care providers.

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