Analytical study on Japanese health education textbooks for elementary and high school students on lifestyle-related diseases

Background and purpose: The leading causes of death among Japanese people in 2011 are malignancy (29%), heart diseases (16%), pneumonia (10%) and cerebrovascular diseases (10%). As inappropriate habits and behaviors from a young age cause lifestyle-related diseases, school health education is important and on the other hand, the health professionals should know the public awareness on the issue to give them effective and efficient health guidance. Methodology: All the health education textbooks in use in elementary, junior and senior high schools in Japan published during November, 2010 and April, 2011 were analyzed for comparison. Successive school curriculum guidelines by the government are also referenced. Results: In each textbook for higher grades of elementary schools and junior high schools, except one, only two pages are devoted for the lifestyle-related diseases issues. All the textbooks for high schools have description on eating habit, smoking and alcohol and all for junior high schools have also description on exercise and rest. In the school curriculum guidelines, the word, “lifestyle-related diseases” is found in that announced in 1998 for the first time. Conclusions: In elementary schools, students learn on general lifestyle first and later, they learn on lifestyle-related diseases related with other issues, which is systematic and reasonable line. In high schools, they study prevention of the diseases and reject way of offers of smoking and drinking as decision-making and behavior selection. As the elementary students are not too early to learn rejection of wrong practices, there should be some description on the issue.