Promoting Health and Well-Being Through Sports on National Sports Day

October 12, 2009 – Osaka, Japan

The second Monday of October is National Sports Day/Health-Sports Day in Japan. Its purpose is to promote health and well-being through sports, and this is the day for sports and to foster a sound mind and body. The day was originally celebrated on October 10th, the day that is most likely to be sunny at this time of the year according to statistical research result, to commemorate the opening ceremony of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In 2000, it was changed to the second Monday of October by a new law, and for this year, it is today, October 12. This is one of the background for Japan (Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo) announcing its candidacy to host Olympic game, and today it was reported by mass media that Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two prefectures that are the sites of nuclear bombing in World War II, are planning to announce their joint-candidacy for 2020 Olympics.

Around this time of the year sports festival is held in schools, sometime in other places such as companies. Sports festival, a whole day event, had really been a big event for the school, community and society. For example, whole family joins the school sports festival and enjoy, and parents take so many photos and videos of their children. There used to be a TV programme of it in which TV stars participated in the festival.

Usually participants are divided into 2 groups/teams of red and white to compete, and variety of games are played at the festival, some are common worldwide such as 100m sprint race, relay race and tug of war, and some other are rather Japan unique. The rather Japan unique ones are as below:-

- “Tamaire” (ball games): During a defined time, participants throw beanbags of their team colour into their team’s basket as many as they can like basket players shoot.
- Obstacle race: Participants compete the speed of going through obstacles such as going over balance beam, running under mats etc.
- Mock cavalry battle: Participants, usually boys of around 11 years old, get into teams and compete for battle.
- Three-legged race: Two people make a team. A leg of each is tied to make three legs and teams have a face of usually 100 metres.
- “Pan-kui-kyoso” Eating bread race: Bread is tied with a rope which is hung, and participants take a big bite to the bread and race to the goal with the bread.
- Centipede race: About 10 participants make a team. Their right and left foot are tied to a board (something like a ski), and the teams walk as quickly as possible toward the goal. Teamwork really counts!
- “Karimono-kyoso” borrowing race: Participants race to pick a card which states something (e.g. girl with red skirt) that he/she is asked to borrow from people present at the festival and take it/that person to the goal as quickly as possible.

In addition, there is team work gymnastics. Children practice this hard for the festival under the guidance from their teachers and on the day, they perform this to show their efforts to their family. And there is also cheering group that liven up the festival. The group is led by a cheering leader, usually a male, and they also practice a lot for the festival.

National Sports Day is also the timing in which body strength of citizens will be focused. Every year Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture execute a survey of body strength including stamina and agility. Approximately 70,000 citizens of age 6-75 are parametric model and the survey will be held May-October, whose results are analyze according to age groups and reported on the National Sports Day. According to the result reported today via mass media, the overall result for children started to improve although it had been on the declined since 1985 and therefore had been an issue. An expert, a member of the analysis team, commented that it is probably the result of step-by-step efforts of schools of increasing opportunities for exercise and sports. On the other hand, results for adults were mixture. Female of age 20-30 deteriorated but male and female of age 40+ and 65+ improved. The overall trend of body strength level is concluded that both male and female increase from 6 years old, and male reach the peak around 17 years old and female around 14 years old; however for grip strength, male reach the peak 30-34 years old and female 40-44 years old.

The survey result and analysis clarified that regular exercise and participating in sports highly contribute to maintaining high level of body strength; however, people in 20s are doing less exercises and enjoying sports compared to 15 and 30 years ago and their body strength level has dropped. Possible reasons for this include the fact that people in their 20s grew up playing indoors, with gaming, Internet and comics, too busy with their work and has insufficient time to regularly enjoy exercise and sports, and so forth. It might well need “fundamental” measures and actions to change and improve this trend and it would take time for tangible results to come out.