A comparative study on the lifestyles of male Japanese and Chinese university students majoring in sports science from Fukuoka and Inner Mongolia, and textbooks on health and physical education

Abstract

An aging society with a declining birthrate has become a problem in Japan and China, making it impor tant to favor improving lifestyles over increasing life expectancy. University students majoring in sports science can become leaders in improving the health of these nations.Participants included 98 Japanese and 76 Chinese male university students from Fukuoka and Inner Mongolia, respectively. An anonymous questionnaire was administered in July and March 2015 to examine whether their lifestyle was healthy.In addition, we compared Japanese and Chinese textbooks on health and physical education and examined the health education contents.Based on breakfast, smoking, and drinking habits, the Japanese students had a more desirable lifestyle than the Chinese ones; 10.2% 10/98 of the Japanese students were smokers, while 52.6% 40/76 of the Chinese students smoked. Based on their daily bedtime and sleeping habits, the Chinese students had a more desirable lifestyle than the Japanese students.We found that the Japanese students scored an average of 25 points on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, while the Chinese students scored about 30 points, which is similar to the findings from a previous study.Health education is featured twice as much as physical education in Japanese textbooks for junior high and high school students. Students learned about "smoking and health" in the fifth and sixth grades, junior high, and high school.While practical skills of physical education account for most pages, the Chinese textbooks have about a quarter of the pages compared to the Japanese ones on health education for junior high school students. There was no description about lifestylerelated diseases and prevention, such as smoking. The Chinese textbooks of physical ［資 料］Vol. No.