The health ministry has decided to address the growing problem of childhood obesity by promoting healthy diets for children.
The ministry will designate 10 districts in five prefectures as model areas in fiscal 2006 where it will work to reduce the number of overweight kids together with schools, households and communities, officials said.
The areas will be required to develop their own programs to fight the problem, they said.
Nine percent of fourth-graders were diagnosed as obese in 2003, up from 5.9 percent in 1982, and 10.8 percent of seventh-graders were obese, up from 7.3 percent, according to an education ministry survey.
One out of 10 children in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades are overweight, it said.
Another survey found that 15 percent of elementary schoolchildren and 20 percent of junior high students skip breakfast two or three days a week.
"We expect each household to develop healthier eating habits, " a health ministry official said.
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