Posts published in “Japanese College Life”

Students majoring nutrition educated students and citizens at Hamada Campus of the University of Shimane on October 13, 2019, presenting their research results at the University’s school festival open to the public.

Students from the Department of Health and Nutrition presented their research results on the survey of eating habits of college students.

Healthy eating habits

By Ayaka Kawamoto, Moeka Kobayashi, Chihiro Sasaki, Manami Shirao, Rina Sota, and Kanon Tsuji

According to the research conducted by a group of students majoring nutrition, both male and female students look at the energy figure in the label of the nutrition values.  They also found boys tended to buy prepared foods at convenience stores more often than girls. Generally speaking, college students tend to consume excessive carbohydrates.

This result is no wonder because many university students live alone in apartments away from their families, feeling cumbersome to cook proper meals every day. College students are busy due to classes and part-time jobs. How can they improve their eating habits? If a student buy a boxed lunch, salad and yogurt at a convenience store, it would be healthier but too expensive.

Based on their research findings, they proposed a wise shopping habit. They suggested that students should buy fruits and dairy products such as oranges, milk and yogurt at a supermarket and keep them in the fridge at home, and that they should eat these when they eat prepared boxed lunch from a convenience store.  In this way, students will be able to enjoy a healthier diet with a good balance of nutrition, but it will be still not so expensive.

At the end of their presentation, the young nutrition experts asked the audience which one should combine with spaghetti: potato salad or cut vegetable.

The correct answer is cut vegetable. Thanks to their educational presentation, most of the audience answered correctly. Their educational presentation was a great success!

One male student asked why they were so beautiful, although the answer was obvious. Good food!

The students are aspiring to be certified dietitians when they graduate from college. The Department of Health and Nutrition at the University of Shimane is the first program for registered dietitians in the area.

Beauty from within

By Koharu Ichoda, Saya Sugai and Aiko Maejima

What is beauty? You might think beauty is the result of good make-up and fashion. For young nutrition experts, nutritious foods are the source of beauty. In order to be truly beautiful, you should eat good foods including vegetables and fruits.

The students made a presentation of healthy eating habits using models and panels. They demonstrated how protein contributed to formation of muscles and internal organs in the human body.

They explained to the audience how protein taken into the body from foods were broken down into amino acids in the body and turned into new proteins for the skin, hair and all the parts of the human body. In other words, beauty is the result of this cycle of amino acids.

There are two types of protein. The animal protein is included in meat and fish. The vegetable protein is included in beans and serials. Both types have different health benefits, so it is wise to take in both of them.

They introduced a recipe for beauty as follows:

Tuna toast

Ingredients:

One piece of bread

Half a can of tuna

Half a pack of fermented beans called natto

Appropriate quantity of mayonnaise

1. Apply mayonnaise lightly on bread

2. Spread tuna and natto on the bread

3. Toast it for 3 to 4 minutes

This recipe is easy to prepare. The students hope that male students of Hamada Campus try this recipe. The Hamada Campus has a lot of male students as the major is policy studies.

Natto is a fermented soybean food popular in Japan.

Common purpose and teamwork produce friendship

By Ayaka Joichi, Yu Takayama and Sachika Yashiro

An international collaborative activity between Korean students and Japanese students brought joy of learning and fulfilling relationships among the students majoring in nutrition.

The joint study seminar was conducted in Oki Island, an island off Shimane Prefecture, Japan in July, 2019 by Department of the Department of Health and Nutrition of the University of Shimane.

Three Korean students from Daegu Health College joined in the international study seminar of eating habits in Japan, which was organized in an effort to educate young students to become registered dietitians.

The Korean and Japanese students conducted a survey together to investigate the eating habits of residents in the remote island.

The students had an opportunity to present their results at a local store, but they faced great difficulty of collecting listeners, because they were not able to use a microphone. It was very challenging to gain the attention of shoppers.

The heart-broken students learned to speak louder and to hook the audience with interesting remarks and gestures.

It was very challenging for Korean students to ask questions in Japanese because their spoken Japanese was limited.

Both Korean and Japanese students formed a strong friendship because they stayed under the same roof for three nights. The Korean students cooked breakfast and dinner and they chatted in English and Japanese at night. One night when Japanese students, who were still in the middle of the semester, studied late at night for their final exams, the Korean students brought some fruit for night snack saying “yashoku” which means “meal for night.” The Japanese students were very grateful.

What made the seminar special was the common purpose. The participants in this seminar are young students who want to become nutrition specialists. It was easy for them to overcome linguistic and cultural differences because they were bound together by a common purpose to make the world a better place by promoting health. They felt as if they were part of a team.

The students also visited a facility for disabled people, where they had an opportunity to interact with people of disability, and they were impressed by how people with disabilities contributed to the society.

This joint seminar is part of the international agreement between the University of Shimane and Daegu Health College. The 83 freshmen and sophomores of the Department of Health and Nutrition participated in the exchange with the Korean students.