The Dietary Guidelines for Japanese, released in 2000, provides the basics of a healthy diet for the people of Japan. In July 2005, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan jointly released a new pictorial guide, The Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top, to help people implement the Dietary Guidelines for Japanese. It guides people as to what kinds and how much food they should eat each day to promote health. This paper describes the nature of the diet and the theoretical framework applied in the development of the new guidelines.

The present study describes findings in relation to perceived body size and 'desire for thinness' by age and residential areas ('metropolitan areas', 'large cities', 'small cities' and 'towns') among young Japanese women. Data on 1731 non-pregnant, non-lactating women aged 15-39 years from the 1998 National Nutrition Survey of Japan were used. Current body size was evaluated by BMI percentiles (lean, <5th; underweight, 5th or = BMI <25th; normal, 25th< or = BMI< 75th; overweight, 75th < or =BMI <95th; obese, > or =95th), calculated for 5-year age groups. Perceived body size was obtained by self-report. We defined 'overestimation' as non-overweight, non-obese women who perceived themselves as being 'overweight' or 'obese'. Desired body size was evaluated by applying the desired BMI to these cut-off points. Of all the women, 48.4% perceived themselves as being 'overweight' or 'obese', and 43.7% desired a 'lean' or 'underweight' body size. Adjusted for the current BMI, the OR for 'overestimation' calculated by a logistic regression model was significantly elevated in the 15-19-year age group (OR 2.79; 95% CI 1.76, 4.43), compared with the 25-29-year age group. The OR for 'desire for thinness' was significantly high in the 35-39-year age group (OR 2.74; 95% CI 1.93, 3.89) and the 15-19-year age group (OR 2.26; 95% CI 1.57, 3.24). Women living in metropolitan areas had higher OR for 'desire for thinness' (but not for 'overestimation') than did women in towns (OR 1.47; 95% CI 1.05, 2.07). The findings suggest the nature of excessive weight concerns of young women in Japan; thus efforts to control such health-risk behaviours at a national level are urgent.

In an attempt to examine differential effects of personality on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) without regard to disease type, we used the HRQoL-20, a general questionnaire (Japanese original scale) we developed (comprising 20 questions related to physiological, psychological or social HRQoL) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), which measures personality traits of extraversion (E), neuroticism (N) and psychoticism (P). The subjects (399 males and 429 females), stomach cancer patients, non-cancer patients (who had received acupuncture or moxibustion treatment) and healthy controls, were classified into three personality types. The results indicated that the HRQoL score of the tolerable/tolerant type (high E, low N and high P scorers) was greater than the intolerable/intolerant type (low E, high N and low P scorers) and also the unclassified type (neither of above scorers). The HRQoL correlated positively with the E and P scales and negatively with the N scale, in the case of all subjects, with the exception of N in male cancer patients and E in male non-cancer patients. The results supported the hypothesis that the HRQoL varies with personality variables, in that each patient, in different treatment settings, strives for the situation that is congruent with his/her personality to attain a better HRQoL.

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