INTRODUCTION
As of May 2009, over 10 million schoolchildren in
32,400 schools (94.3% of all elementary schools, junior
high schools, special needs schools, and evening high
schools in Japan) participate in the school lunch program,
according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology (MEXT).1
Japanese school lunch program aims to promote
healthy mental and physical development of school children,
and to contribute to improvement of their dietary
habits by providing balanced meals. Not only serving
nutritional food, school lunch program also serves as an
important educational method for school children to acquire
proper dietary habits and its knowledge, and a sense
of gratitude in children. School children are responsible
for arranging and cleaning the tables and serving meals in
their classrooms. They could also learn proper mealtime
greetings and manners, by having meals together with
classmates. Furthermore, understanding of balanced nutrition,
food culture and history can be enhanced through
learning the menu of each meal.