Diet Communication

If you are in Japan, knowledge about dieting is very useful. Whether you are in Japan for business or even for personal travel, knowing basic topics that appeal to the Japanese are really useful to make your conversations go more smoothly.

Did you know about 70% of people in Japan are interested in dieting? If you have enough knowledge about proper dieting, you will gain popularity among the people you speak with. If you work in sales, gaining popularity and supports is very crucial in making your business successful. In order to get supporters, it is necessary to take these steps:

1. Gain supporters for yourself
2. Convert these supporters for your business
3. Get them to purchase your company’s products

These are the basic steps for a successful salesman. You may be wondering how knowledge on proper and healthy dieting techniques can help you. Dieting knowledge can work as a “break the ice” topic, something that is easy for everyone to understand and easy for you to learn as well. People will be especially impressed if you are an American outside of the US since Americans tend to have a bad reputation for poor eating habits. Not to say all Americans have poor eating habits, this is just how we are generally perceived outside of the US.

About one week should be enough for you to gain the knowledge and theories of healthy dieting. In Japan, such should be required teaching in Junior High School in a 5-6 hour lesson. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to impose such a requirement because it can create conflict with the food industry.

While discussing this topic in our office, we were talking about the differences in diet education in primary school in Japan and the US. How did your school treat nutrition and diet education? Let me know and feel free to discuss no matter what country you are from.

When I was in Junior High in the US, I took Home Economics which taught some diet and nutrition. Although, it was an elective and the only reason why I took it was because I had transferred schools and so was late in registering. It was the only course available so I had the impression it was not a very popular course. I wasn’t required to learn about nutrition until High School and it was something I could have taken at any time as long as it was before graduation. I’m not sure how the school systems are like now.