27 Feb Revisiting Physical Fitness for Japanese Children and Adolescents from a Global Perspective of Physical Activity

The Japan Report Card Team have published a book about their Report Card titled “Revisiting Physical Fitness for Japanese Children and Adolescents from a Global Perspective of Physical Activity“! Please read the below comment from the author, Chiaki Tanaka:

Our tiny book may bring about a fundamental change – a small “paradigm shift” – in conventional view and thought on physical fitness (PF) and physical activity (PA) of children and adolescents in the present Japan. That is my personal opinion as one of the authors of the book and as a physical education specialist who is working for the Japanese government.

Japan’s emphasis on, or obsession with, PF is a clear and strong tradition. As you may know, Japanese government has been measuring PF (not PA) of children and adolescents (and adults) of the whole country every year for the past 60 years (i.e., from the time of the first Tokyo Summer Olympics). In other words, Japan has monitored its people’s PF for longer and more diligently than any other countries in the world.

Behind such a tradition lies the country’s strong desire to improve PF of its people. The desire started some 150 years ago, when Japan opened its doors to the Western world, and has continued until today. As proof of this, educational policies of the government, from central to local, always include “improving PF ” of children and adolescents as one of their pillars.

However, such policies and its base – the tradition of emphasizing PF – are now running into a wall in terms of effectiveness. Indeed, individual differences in PF of children and adolescents have widened and average values have continued to decline over the past 40 years, but Japanese society has been unable to take any effective measures to address the trends. Some people believe that reversing such trends is no longer realistic, given the many global issues lie behind them.

In the circumstances described above, your (AHKGA’s) activities and products appear to provide useful suggestions for the present Japan. For example, a comment described in your paper (Aubert et al. 2022: JPAH 19), “the government should recognize that fitness is a reflection of PA, rather than the target of policy itself” (p. 711), is excellent advice to our country, which is seeking a new concept to replace the old one (just “improving PF”).

We, the authors, are confident that our book will contribute to promoting PA of our children and adolescents, and thereby contribute to the future of Japan.

Congratulations to the Japan Report Card team!

Read the book here.