Extract

LECTURER PROFILE

President of Hattori Nutrition College. Born in Tokyo. Graduated from St. Paul's University. Completed doctoral course at the Faculty of Medicine of Showa University. He has been actively delivering lectures on the prevention of diseases associated with adult lifestyle habits and the preservation of the global environment via ‘shokuiku,’ or food education. Awarded the Ranju Hosho award, an honor from the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Minister of Education in Japan, and L'ordre national du Mérite and L'ordre du Mérite agricole from the French Government. Chairman of the Japan Association of Training Colleges for Cooks.

FOOD AND CANCER

Hospital food

It was in 1985 when I visited a friend in hospital to find that the evening meal was being served at 4:00 pm in the afternoon. I remarked to my friend that this was an early time to be served dinner and that friend replied that by 8:00 pm he was usually so hungry he was unable to sleep. When I looked into the matter I found that the early timing of dinner was due to a decision by the hospital labor union, whereby catering staff left work at 6:00 pm. At the time I was writing a regular column for a newspaper, so I wrote an article in which I stated that more attention should be paid by hospitals to the needs of patients and questioned the system surrounding hospital food. The chancellor of Tokyo Women's Medical University responded to my column, expressing his support for what was written and the topic was then brought up on the television networks. As a result of this media attention the following year it was decided that all of Japan's 3500 hospitals nationwide would serve dinner at 6:00 pm.

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