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Monitoring and surveillance
Dietary guidelines have been developed by many countries to help promote healthy dietary habits and to prevent obesity. In 2005, the Japanese Government developed the Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top (JFG) to help Japanese people implement dietary guidelines to promote healthy eating(1,2). The US Government developed the Food Guide Pyramid in 1992 and modified it as MyPyramid in 2005. The Australian Government developed the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating, with a message 'Enjoy a variety of food every day'. The JFG is unique in that it is expressed in quantities of the 'dish' rather than in the 'food' format to estimate the quantity of food consumed in a daily diet and that it uses the analogy of the shape of a spinning top, which incorporates an aspect of Japanese culture(2). The JFG indicates that a balanced diet and physical activity are important to keep the top spinning (keep healthy). In addition, the JFG not only describes the optimal food intake for Japanese people but also provides nutritional messages that aim to enhance the awareness of healthy eating(1).
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan has been actively and continuously conducting nationwide campaigns via mass media to promote awareness of the JFG among the Japanese population since 2006. The campaign consisted of advertisements showing the image of a famous Japanese actress on television, buses and trains. There were also events aimed at raising awareness among students, the younger generations, middle-aged men, nurturers, the elderly and people living alone. Dissemination of the JFG was promoted by organizations such as supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, schools, kindergartens, transportation facilities and public facilities(3). Communication campaigns have been shown to be one of the most effective strategies for changing eating behaviours at the population level(4). Additionally, communication campaigns are managed in a stepwise process by first raising awareness of the campaign message, which consequently leads to a change in knowledge, attitudes and behaviour(5,6). Thus, disseminating the JFG with the communication campaign and increasing awareness of the JFG may consequently promote healthy eating...