Lessons from the health policies for children during the pandemic in Japan

Abstract

It is everyone's desire to seek the sound growth of children through food education and there is a critical need for fostering an environment for this purpose. Health policies are important for this support. To the present, the Japanese society has been greatly disrupted by COVID-19 pandemic. “Stay at home”, “mokusyoku (silent eating)”, and mask wearing were encouraged in nationwide campaigns as public health measures to combat COVID-19. There are some papers reporting negative effects of “stay at home” and lockdowns such as weight gain, decrease in physical activities and change in eating habits. In Japan, while benefits and advantages of food education during mealtime were previously well studied, the “mokusyoku” rule may directly run counter to this food education. Moreover, there are several reports showing that nutrients might contribute to prevention of infectious diseases. Japanese children were also encouraged to wear masks all day long. The results of the clinical research, especially randomized control trials, show limited protective effect of masks. On the other hand, negative outcomes of the masks were reported in various scenes. This review focuses on these topics and arousing reconsideration for a better environment for children.

Three years of COVID-19-related school restrictions and children's mental health in Japan

“…Discrepancies were also observed in mask-wearing and social distancing, although that in hand disinfection 42 was particularly pronounced. Given that hand sanitization is less likely to disrupt friendships in children than mask wearing, the latter being a concern in psychological studies in terms of emotional recognition 9,[43][44][45] and cognitive performance 46 , replacing some of the mandates for mask-wearing and silent lunches with a greater promotion of hand sanitization might have been an alternative measure to balance the containment of COVID-19 infection and children's well-being. Second, the widespread use of PCR and rapid tests might have mitigated the trade-off between the promotion of school activities and the implementation of mitigation measures.…”

“…We asked the implementation status of 13 popular school events that included (1) eld trips, (2) social studies tours, (3) school excursions, (4) school events involving overnight stays other than school excursions, (5) athletic meets and festivals, (6) marathons, (7) swimming competitions, (8) ball game competitions (basketball, volleyball, dodgeball, etc. ), (9) athletic events other than the above, (10) cultural and school art festivals, (11) chorus singing contests, (12) calligraphy contests, and (13) arts and humanities events other than the above. Since children sometimes miss a school event anyways, or schools could cancel events for reasons unrelated to COVID-19, we explicitly asked our survey participants the reason behind an event not being implemented by including certain choices in the answer options given to them, namely (1) participated; (2) held but did not participate; (3) held before the COVID-19 pandemic but not that year; (4) neither held before the COVID-19 pandemic nor that year; (5) was not of eligible age (e.g., 4th -year elementary school student did not participate in the school excursion in FY2020).…”

“…This style of school lunch is called as silent lunch or mokusyoku in Japanese 9,10 -as shown in SI Appendix, Figure SI1-(c). For details on the mitigation measures in schools in Japan, please refer to the work by Shobako (2022) 9 . As a result of these measures, 86% of the children reported that they have friends whose faces they have never seen due to masks 11 .…”

COVID-19 Risk Perceptions in Japan: A Cross Sectional Study

“…We also inquired about their smoking habits and medical history. For medical history, we asked if the respondents had any of the following chronic diseases: (1) malignant neoplasms (cancer), (2) cerebrovascular diseases (e.g., cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral infarction), (3) respiratory system diseases, (4) cardiovascular diseases (angina pectoris, myocardial infarction), (5) gastrointestinal diseases (e.g., stomach, intestines, liver, spleen diseases), (6) endocrine system diseases (e.g., diabetes), (7) kidney diseases, (8) hematological diseases (e.g., anemia). Additionally, we asked about COVID-19-related information, including the vaccination status, the number of past infections, and whether the respondents had any acquaintances-such as family members, relatives, and friends-who died of the virus.…”

“…Japanese consumer con dence did not return to prepandemic levels, with the real consumption index scoring lower in April 2023 (97.9) than in January 2020 (100.5) 6 . Children's school life had not normalized by spring 2023; many school events were still cancelled in 2022-2023 and more than half of schools forced students to eat lunch silently, which may deteriorate children's mental health 7,8 . The number of marriages dropped sharply in 2020 and has not recovered yet, likely re ecting these socio-economic environments.…”