00:41
It's just because other things are busy, right?
So, that was a great time.
That was a great time, it was fun, but there are other things that happen in our lives that makes us busy.
However, the show must continue and it is the time of the month to do our monthly installment of 科学系ポッドキャスト.
Hooray!
From party back to work.
Yes.
今月は腸内細菌相談室と宇宙話という2つの番組がコラボでホストしております。
鈴木さんと佐々木さんですね。
They are proposing the theme of 保健。
インシュランスの保健じゃなくて、ヘルスの方の保健ね。
漢字は違う。
漢字は違うし、日本語は難しい。
でも、ヘルスの方でっていうのもね、4月7日は世界保健デーなんだって。
So, it's World Health Day, apparently.
Really?
World Health Day?
Yeah, the 7th of April.
Who would have known?
知らなかった。
Oh, so it's perfect.
Yeah, so it's right in our 科学系 time period.
And also, interestingly, 5 years ago of 7th of April was the day that COVID-19 was declared pandemic.
I just had some sort of similar reminder today.
That would be the second time that was reminded to me.
I mean, aren't we all so glad that those days are past us?
Well, yeah.
That's nice.
It's such a bizarre and weird feeling.
Anywho, that's why they've decided to make a theme of this month, 保健。
And let's talk about 保健、医療、健康。
03:01
So like, you know, health, medical stuff.
I guess I don't know the difference between 保健 and 健康 technically.
Because I kind of vaguely translated them as both health.
Like, 保健 and 健康, kind of interchangeable.
健の漢字 is the same 健, right?
健の漢字、そうそう、正しい。当たってる当たってる。
だから健康の健と保健の健は同じ。
だけど、
It's so interchangeable, actually, to the point that it used to be 世界保健で。
But now, actually, starting this year, they've decided to call it 世界健康で。
And I don't really know the difference.
And I guess none of us really do.
That sounds like a perspective flip, right?
Like it's an outside preservation, protection to a personal 自分で。
そうかもしれない。
そうかもしれない。
From my own technical but a native Japanese speaker point of view,
保健 sounds like health education, like physical education.
Like that kind of vibes.
And 健康 sounds more like health and wellness.
It could be both.
It's more of a casual thing that you incorporate in your daily life.
Right, okay.
Whereas 保健 is like the class or the sort of teaching and dissemination.
What made me think of them is like the subject.
There was a subject called 保健 in my school.
保健体育。
Usually it's like 保健 slash 体育.
And it's like 保健health slash physical education.
I was going to say 体育 is definitely...
We'll get to, I think, our topic is going to basically be this.
Mine also was basically a health gym mix, I think, for quite a while.
Yeah.
So that's why I wanted to ask you, what's your experience kind of in school, especially, right?
Growing up, what was sort of like health education that you got as an American teenager?
And I'll try and remember what I was taught in Japanese middle school, which was way too long ago.
And also my vague and probably very limited exposure to health education in my high school, in international school.
06:05
Yeah.
Just like really don't remember much.
But like, yeah, because I feel like a lot of these things is where sort of like a common sense of health,
what is considered healthy behavior is built in school days, like a famous one.
And I remember this because I think I was in a UK system is like five a day.
So it's like five, eat five vegetables a day, I think was the idea.
Like five different ones.
Okay.
And it's like, it was always five a day, like get your fives day kind of thing.
And that was like a slogan.
And I think I don't know if that's like still a thing.
But that's what I seem to remember as sort of like a slogan or a phrase.
Okay.
Yep.
Yep.
I have I have heard phrases like this and I can jump.
And I remember this because I was very upset that potatoes don't count as the vegetable.
Yeah, that's.
In my book, potatoes are fully vegetables.
I don't know if we should go down that rabbit hole today because I don't have a strong opinion about it.
I don't know.
We'll just say you're right.
We'll just we'll just say you're right.
Somebody else.
Well, all right.
That's a date.
I'm always right when it comes to potatoes.
And soba, I think if those are the two things.
And soba.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
But so so well, you know, get your fives today.
Right.
Except for potatoes was the idea.
Do you have that kind of slogan that you like learned in your school or like had somewhere stuck in your head?
So the answer is there were probably other ones.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The thing that popped into my mind when you said this is the other sort of baseline type of foundational like food related guidance that is usually passed around by word of mouth or shared to each other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, you know, the food pyramid.
Right.
And do you also know that we replaced the food pyramid in 2011?
Nope.
Okay.
So this is a good example of how pervasive and this means like how much it has spread right throughout like a cultural socio cultural mindset that this food pyramid is the quote unquote like best way to imagine your meals and like a balanced diet.
That was like a de facto visualization.
09:01
Right.
Like what you should eat in a day.
Yep.
Yep.
This was it was huge.
Right.
This is definitely something.
And I mean, 2011.
Right.
That's, you know, nearly two decades worth of us being.
Yeah.
But I also want to say that my like my last memory of interacting with food pyramids in a school setting is probably like early 2000s.
So I'm definitely not up to date about when they replaced this.
Yeah.
So I had to check the date, but I wanted to pull it up.
So maybe we can share one or two of these links.
There's.
Yes.
If you look up, you know, food pyramid replacement or something.
Right.
You'll you'll get a lot of work on this.
In short, I'm currently pulling from a Harvard Health publishing page from Harvard Medical School by it looks like Skerritt is the author's name here.
In 2011.
And what I'm taking from this so that everybody has a place to start is that the food pyramid is obviously a pyramid in shape.
Yeah.
And there was, as they describe it, quote, built on shaky scientific ground, end quote.
And that was in 1992 that it came out.
So this was.
Okay.
A lot of things that were true in 1992 are no longer true.
Yeah.
Well, yes, there's a lot that has changed.
And I guess in that case, it didn't start all that great.
Right.
There's a hint in this particular article to me that there was a, you know, not only was it kind of shaky, it had kind of an implication with it being like top to bottom, you know, the good things, bad things started to come out sort of feeling.
Yes, it was very hierarchical.
Yeah.
And it was very attached to like the industries that I think played a role in perhaps developing the food pyramid.
But I'm not I'm not going to we'll go too far into that.
Right.
And so it was all these weird twisted ways that that was coming across.
It got apparently a crazy makeover in 2005 where they flipped it on its side, which I had never seen.
So I don't know what that looks like.
They like change the color schemes that all this stuff.
Apparently, what tried to happen was to make it like better, but it seems to be, you know, bad.
And then I am pretty sure that my plate, my plate is the name of the new one.
Right. And the one that's been around since then was triggered.
It's not in this article, but I thought it was part of sort of like, you know, Michelle and Barack Obama's type of movement.
I do remember this.
And so like this results in just a plate which shows kind of the relative proportions of the groups you might want to have at a meal.
12:02
Right. So it shows fruits, grains, vegetables, protein and dairy in relative proportions.
Grains to veggies look about the same proportion.
They're a little bit bigger than like the fruits to protein, which are about the same proportion.
Dairy a little bit smaller than that. Right.
Yeah. And it just sort of equalizes this idea of trying to get kind of like rough proportions on a plate.
And I mean, if you're off a little, it's okay.
You know, like less more like less hierarchical than this pyramid shape would imply.
Yes, exactly. And so like that was that really.
Yeah, it just it pushed it off and it doesn't.
They note in this particular article, a quote by a nutrition expert, I guess, Walter C. Willett.
He quotes the most important issues are in the details that are not captured by the icon of the MyPlate.
Of course. You know, like what type of grain, what sources of proteins, you know, things like that.
So there is there's work on this. Right.
But like there was a change. And so data from our class, you know, Hokken or Hokken and Taiko is not the way that it used to be.
And yet the actual dissemination of that information, not as great as the food pyramids scheme to share with everybody else.
Right. It didn't it didn't spread as wide, even though it is the current standard.
Or, yeah, is the current standard. But for anybody who's savvy out there about the U.S. political situation,
poke around and see people complaining about the food pyramid still existing.
It doesn't. But the old message rides through if you're not careful.
Right. People are checking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.
That's that's super interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
I'm glad you mentioned the fruit a day sort, you know, like sort of thing, because that's that's five a day.
No, no, no. It's it's it's interesting that.
Yeah, I do remember learning about food pyramids in some shape or form.
Never questioned their hierarchical nature because I again like and I think now I stand as like not attaching any moral assignments to food groups.
So, you know, no, I don't subscribe to the idea of sugar is bad or like fats are bad.
You know, it's just like everything in moderation is basically the message I follow.
And which is also the most nuanced and like unsexy health message to give out to the world.
Because what do you mean by moderation? Yeah. Right.
And then like, what do you mean moderation? And it's not like it's not very easy to illustrate those triangles that get smaller and smaller towards the apex.
It's a lot easier visualization. Of course.
15:02
However, I do appreciate their attempt to sort of like, you know, flatten that like hierarchy.
Yeah. To just remove by putting it onto a plate.
Yeah. And, you know, give you a visual and sort of like more relatable idea of like, oh, this is like the portion size that I should aim for.
Right. Which is like easy to do. Like if you have a plate, it's a lot easier to visualize and you know what a plate looks like.
So, you know, and that's a good thing to do.
So I think, you know, for now, I support it until otherwise proven, you know, a few decades down the road.
I support the improvement. Maybe that's something that we can agree on.
Yeah. I agree. I like that they noticed that hierarchical nature of food assignment is not a reflection of how everyone should be eating.
Or can eat.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So. So that's that's good. And I like that.
Interesting. I have another one of these. And this one comes from Japanese health authorities.
And I don't know if this is true, but I remember and I think I still see them in supermarkets here and there.
There's a rule of like 30 different food items a day is like what you should aim for.
30 items. Have you heard of it? Have you seen it?
I've heard of it in English, but I don't think I knew the Japanese. What was the Japanese for it again?
30 items. Like 30 is 30, right? And the item is like the item.
Maybe I've heard the word, but I do know this idea.
Like we cover one third of your day's requirements kind of thing, you know?
Or like sometimes even like 30 item salad. We got you covered, you know, kind of thing.
What a crazy salad.
Right. Yeah. Okay. Which is like, it's a pretty difficult standard to.
Hugely, hugely. Yeah. To meet. Yeah.
And this is somewhat easier in Japanese food system where we're very used to eating lots of small Kobachi type set up.
You have your rice bowl. You have your miso soup. You have your main protein based dish.
And you have like, you know, one or two, sometimes even three, you know, little veggie side dishes. Right.
And like, I don't know how Japanese mothers or, you know, homemakers do this, like hands down respect.
18:02
But like, all I can whip out on a tired long day is some kind of grains with like some kind of protein and done, you know?
Right. Yeah. Like this, this is also why I want to get to this idea of the 30 pieces because it's an interesting.
Like 30 different items. Like, of course, like, you know, if you have time to chop 30 different vegetables or like, you know, things like that, like, or you have the money to buy your, you know, Sanju Himoku salad every day.
Yeah. Sure. Great. You know, great.
But like, it's, it's like, yeah, really hard to hit every day.
Kind of assumes a lot of like the person's ability to access food of that kind of different range.
Access is a huge thing.
And especially, I think, difficult if your diet is based on like a Western food diet where it's typically like, you know, one main dish, right?
Like, you know, whether it's like a pasta or like a chicken or something.
And then, you know, you might have bread or like something on a side.
But like, that's usually like very small part.
You can skip those. Right.
Yeah. And yeah.
So like, if you eat pizza, that's it. Right.
Like, you can't put like 30 different things on pizza.
Although I do remember a Hanafari episode of like someone trying to make a healthiest pizza possible.
Or like, was it like, I forgot.
It's like, how big does a pizza have to be if you were to put everything of like the recommended amount?
Oh, my God. That's a crazy.
Of the day. Yeah.
There's a design problem for you.
Sorry, that's not a fair callback.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a Rutherford and Fry episode.
I need to dig back into it.
Maybe if you find that one, we can investigate it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like, yeah, it's like as crazy as that.
So you said that you heard about this in English as well.
So maybe it's not like unique to Japanese health authorities.
Right. So it's a couple of things because I'm so tired that apparently there is no limit on what my brain decides to do.
You love tiredness.
So, well, yeah, sometimes I do, too.
So the two things.
First thing, I have heard it and like, I can tell that it is very analogous.
Right. Or related to that idea of food pyramid.
Not they're not the same.
They don't come from the same sourcing, but there's this intention behind it that that was the working principle.
Right. That we do this 30 things a day type idea.
Now, the second thing is that, you know, when I heard this, I had the same response I sort of had to the food pyramid, which is that's crazy.
21:07
But as you said, it is technically easier to achieve that here because lots of things come in small little things like you can get a variety of little stuff.
Or like things are perhaps designed like the bento.
It's just kind of part of the culture to eat that kind of different little things.
Yes. And now I was like, OK, yeah.
So so there it is. There's another one.
However, and I cannot search in Japanese as well as I can in English.
Sure. But at a glance, it seems like this one was also replaced.
Oh, interesting. So like the how many the guidelines.
So I found from Kyourin Yu, which maybe it's the universe.
I don't know. Is they had a.
I'll send you the link that maybe we can share it if we feel it's relevant.
But like a health related flyer that seems to talk about this 30 Sanju Hinmoku.
Except that, well, they ask the same question that you asked me.
And so then it explains this, at least in a quick translation.
They're like, well, we used to say that, but it's probably more important to just balance it now.
I know the I know.
So that is that's that's the idea. Right.
And there was another I don't know if I read this one right.
But this is just like health dot any dot JP, which.
Yeah. They're saying that it's actually kind of hard to count 30 because like what if you're eating.
Yeah. What is the compound food?
Yeah. That's a good point, too.
Right. Like if you're eating hamburger, it's got meat.
It's got some kind of binder like, you know, breadcrumbs or like eggs.
And it also has like sometimes have Tamanegi.
So that's like your vegetable, you know.
Do you count them as four Hinmoku or like one meat?
Yeah. Right. Like that's one Hinmoku.
One piece of something.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
This. No. OK. Have you have you.
It's what I call this an English joke.
Maybe. Have you ever heard the argument for why cake is a breakfast food?
No, but I don't I don't go against it.
But it's basically what you just said. Right.
You're like, OK, so it's got egg, it's got milk, it's got egg, it's got milk.
It's got like the flour, you know, like you eating with your breads, you know, that sort of, you know, it's got a little bit of sugar, you know, like, you know, a jam is a fruit.
24:06
You might put fruit in it. You might put jam in it. Right.
Like so this this thing you're talking about from the flyer, the children's flyer here is that idea.
Right. So it does exist. Right. Because you're asking, what are the parts that I eat and consume?
And that is a long conversation for for all of us and and all the people involved.
So, yeah, make it simple. Right.
The approach here. Just try to mix things up. Right.
Like, yeah. Yeah. So so everything in moderation, again, like a very boring message.
But and very kind of hard to quantify.
Right. Yeah. Because, you know what this, you know, I mean, I don't know.
I'm definitely not the one to be enjoying somebody prescribing me like a precise diet of like, OK, you can have like a hundred grams of whatever every meal or something.
Right. Yeah. I yeah. Like, you know what? I do appreciate that people are like updating these things, you know, actively.
There are there are people doing it. So. Right.
And and at least generally speaking, it seems to be improving in a direction that is, you know, more reasonable or like reflective of current science.
So kudos to the health PR people.
Well done. Well done to all of the to all of the health workers out there.
You are all doing a fantastic job and you need to hear it more. Please continue working on that too.
Yes. Thank you very much for all of you.
This is very interesting, you know, because it's it's like it's these kind of like, you know, none of us remember like anatomies of, you know, like legs or like aorta versus like ventricle, like whatever from your, you know, health class.
All the anatomy teachers just like crying.
Sorry, Mr. Dealey. I do remember having fun dissecting pig hearts. That's about it.
Oh, that's that's nice. Nice and sweet. OK.
But anyway, you know, these are not the details that we remember in adulthood.
It's usually these often reductive snippets of like, yeah, yeah, a random number.
Like, I don't want to go into details, but like 10,000 steps a day. That's another thing.
Yeah, that's another one. Like random number that like hasn't basically no scientific connotation.
And I think it actually comes from a Japanese company who, you know, released the first step counters.
27:04
Oh, I could see that.
There are called manpoke. And like man, manpoke literally means like 10,000 step counter, right?
And man, like you already know, you're like nodding vigorously.
So anyone, any Japanese would know that like jiman is just like a vague number for like a lot, right?
Like it's a lot of steps. It's a lot of things.
It's like saying thousands of miles without really knowing how many miles there actually are.
And it's the same concept. Like man sounds like a lot.
But like, you know, because it actually has a number.
And when they're translating it for the international market, they said 10,000, because that's what it means.
Other than let's take more steps, which was a good messaging to give.
But nobody said 10,000 is the magic number.
And now the science has proven that it's not the case.
And, you know, still, if you're getting like 200 steps a day, you should probably shoot for a lot more than 200.
What is 200 steps a day?
I think that's like walking, going back and forth between the bathroom five times a day.
Like, yeah, I think. Yeah, because it would take me. I don't need to do this math right now.
This is not OK. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
That's actually that it's it's the sort of health PR is full of these kind of reductive message reduced for better dissemination for necessity, of course.
And that's the reason why it sticks with us. Right.
So there's some use for that. Sometimes that comes with the cost of not being scientifically backed, you know, prioritizing catchiness over actual, you know, more precise messaging.
And yeah. Yeah. So but these are what we carry as an adult, like growing up.
Yeah. It sticks with you because you grow. You grow with it reinforced. You're using it. You're considering it.
And it is really hard, even if it might might and often is worthwhile to go back and reassess it.
It's hard to do. Right. And you might not have the time, the space, the the the ability to do so. Right.
Not at all. Yeah. Which is why, you know, on the bigger systems of things, we try to change it.
And then you have to try to communicate it. These are both very important steps, you know.
Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. I think this is a good place to round up.
Yeah, I think so. Like, yeah, I do want to without making the episode too long.
I like to wish that we had time to talk about mental health, like if that has improved since we were in school days.
I I let's let's do it. Let's let's go in. Let's do it for the next episode.
30:05
Yeah, we'll go in. We'll go in for the next episode. We'll touch on that.
I might not have the most up to date, but we can talk about what it was like maybe with our timing and what we hope has happened.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. And as maybe a final note for this one, because we mentioned the World Health Day.
Right. Which I guess. Yes. Is being referred to as Sekai no Kenko or Sekai no.
Well, it is now Sekai Kenko. Now it's Sekai Kenko day.
So as of this year. So I took a quick look at the Wikipedia page, assuming this is right.
It came into effect in 1950, two years after they held the first World Health Assembly.
So that means it's the 75th anniversary. Yep. Yep. Yep. I don't.
That's exactly. Yeah. OK. Like. Yeah. So.
So that's kind of like pretty amazing that, you know, we have managed to live all these years without collectively thinking about health.
It's only been 75 years since we worried about our health or other people's health.
The way you have just described that has truly, truly caused me deep distress.
Not in a bad way, but just like you're right. In like a really global way.
We haven't. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, but like, you know, sometimes I love like taking a step back like this and just be like, oh, wow.
We you know, there are a lot of things I'm not happy about the world, but like, you know, there are things that we've done pretty good job on.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, maybe establishing WHO might be one of them.
Yeah. There are a few things that are good. This is one of them. Yes, we can start judging all of them.
But like recognizing that it is better than it was and why is important.
Yeah. Yeah. Like health is on its way of becoming a human right. Yeah. Not yet. Not yet.
But I think we all share that this is important. Right. For everyone.
We all hopefully share that it is important for everyone and that everybody should have access to these things.
Let's leave it there before I go off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not go deeper because that's going to be another.
Yeah. All right. That's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening and find us on X at Eigo de Science.
That is E I G O D E S C I E N C. See you next time.
