Several universities and the cooperatives that run their dining halls are experimenting with methods to get their students to eat breakfast, such as a "mileage point" system or free breakfast campaigns.
Such ideas are working rather well for the students--not only in making the morning meal a habit, but also in expanding their circle of friends.
Beginning this academic year, the cooperative at Miyagi University of Education in Sendai started a breakfast promotion program called "breakfast marathon."
Under the program, students can collect one point by buying breakfast at the cafeteria run by the cooperative. With five points, they receive a small side dish normally priced at 60 yen. With 10 points, they receive a side of rice and miso soup, and 15 points gets them a 400 yen meal.
Furthermore, the cooperative ran a campaign through late May, in which students were awarded double points when they ate breakfast at the cafeteria in a group of two or more.
University junior Naoki Takahashi collected 15 points in April alone. During the month, he had breakfast at the cafeteria 10 times, five of which were each with a different friend.
"I live on my own, so it's nice to eat with my friends," Takahashi, 21, said. "The points turn into meals, so I can save my living expenses, too."
The cooperative began serving breakfast at the refectory in April 2005, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. At first, however, only about 10 people came each day.
"So we thought we needed a system that would make it fun and advantageous to have breakfast at the dining hall," Takao Tamura, a senior cooperative executive, said.
Since beginning the "breakfast marathon," the number of students eating breakfast in the school's dining hall has jumped fivefold.
At Hakuoh University in Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture, students have been receiving breakfast for free at the student refectory during part of April for the past six years. The idea is to get students to eat regularly and have a more stable lifestyle. Between April 11 and April 28 this year, about 500 students took advantage of the free breakfast each day.
And at Tottori University, freshmen can have free breakfast for several days immediately after matriculating into the university. This year, they received the gratis meal from April 10 to April 14. Other students and faculty members participated in the program as counselors to offer advice to the freshmen about student life.
According to a survey on students conducted every year by the federation of university cooperatives in Tokyo, 61 percent of students living away from their parents said they do not eat breakfast. Many students also are not getting a balanced diet.
And according to a first-of-its-kind survey in 2005 by the Consumer Cooperative Institute of Japan in Tokyo of about 7,000 students, the number of students claiming they become tired easily was in correlation with the number of students who said they do not regularly eat breakfast. Only about 20 percent of students said they enjoy having breakfast, presumably because they tend to have breakfast alone.
"Even if you are aware and informed about how to protect your health, most of the time you can't do so because it takes money and time," said Ichiro Nishimura, who was in charge of the survey. "It's important to support universities and university cooperatives so that students can have a lively campus life."
(Jun. 19, 2006)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060619TDY03001.htm
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