Urban‐rural differences in food habits in north‐eastern Japan

Popularity of 14 food items was investigated by questionnaires with more than thirty thousand respondents (ages ≥40 years). Half of these respondents (the urban group), lived in a prefectural city and the remaining half (the rural group), in an agricultural area in north‐eastern Japan. Four traditional items of food (rice, fish, miso soup and pickles) were frequently consumed by both groups, but they were significantly more popular in the rural group. The three non‐traditional items (bread, coffee and European tea) were taken to some extent by the urban group but they were consumed less frequently by the rural group. Thus, food habits were typically Japanese even after extensive modernization of communities in the last two decades but gradual changes are taking place. With men, bread and European tea were better accepted by the elderly than the younger‐aged in both groups; but the reverse was the case with women, indicating a sex difference in acceptance of nontraditional food items. Of particular interest was the wide popularity of milk, even among rural elderly, considering the fact that dairy fanning has only had a short history in Japan.

Key words:

• bread
• coffee
• food habit
• Japan
• milk
• modernization
• questionnaire survey
• rice
• tea
• traditional food
• urban‐rural difference

Notes

Requests for reprints to: Prof. M. Ikeda, Department of Environmental Health, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai 980, Japan.