Research on improving the lunch environment for female workers to build an improved dietary environment

Nutritional health is important and in order to ensure that dietary needs are being met, research on this area, leading to recommendations that can help adjust behaviour, is key. In Japan, the dietary needs of working women are often not met. Professor Satomi Maruyama, Faculty of Human Life and Environment, Kinjo Gakuin University, is a registered dietitian who is investigating the dietary environment of working women in Japan. This includes factors such as where to buy food, whether they cook at home and what kind of diet they choose. Maruyama and her team found that women with a social network have a healthier ‘dietary consciousness’, enjoying meals and having an awareness of the benefits of a balanced diet, while those outside of a social network have poorer diets, leading to negative impacts on health. A key negative impact of interest for the researchers is salt consumption, which is prevalent in Japan. Maruyama conducted a survey on the dietary intake of female workers and found the salt content to be high. The researchers explored the impact of the use of tabletop memos containing information on the negative impact of too much salt and found that having this information on view raised awareness of salt reduction which led to changes in behaviour. A current focus for Maruyama and the team is on how the lunch environment for female workers can be improved.