Cavity Rates for Children Hit Record Lows in Japan

Tokyo, Feb. 13 (Jiji Press)–Cavity rates for kindergarten, elementary, junior high and high school students in Japan all rewrote record lows, an education ministry survey for fiscal 2025 showed Friday. According to the survey for the year ending next month, 19.44 pct of children at kindergartens had at least one cavity, down from the previous year’s 20.74 pct, 30.83 pct at elementary schools, down from 32.89 pct, 25.23 pct at junior high schools, down from 26.50 pct, and 32.77 pct at high schools, down from 34.70 pct. “Toothbrushing programs at schools and greater health awareness at home could be behind the results,” a ministry official said. In the annual health study on children aged 5 to 17, the ministry randomly selected about 3.14 million students nationwide, excluding those at special-needs schools, and looked chiefly at their medical checkup data. The ministry is now considering how to track health conditions of special school students. The survey also found that the proportion of children with uncorrected visual acuity below 1.0, or 20/20, fell from 26.53 pct to 23.90 pct at kindergartens, from 36.84 pct to 36.07 pct at elementary schools, and from 60.61 pct to 59.35 pct at junior high schools. At high schools, however, the poor vision figure rose from 71.06 pct to 71.51 pct. Despite the better readings at all levels except high schools, the ministry sees the overall trend of worsening eyesight still continuing. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]