Cavity rates for kindergarten, elementary, junior high and high school students in Japan have all rewritten record lows, an education ministry survey for the year ending in March has found.
According to the fiscal 2025 survey, released Friday, 19.44% of children at kindergartens had at least one cavity, down from the previous year¡¯s 20.74%, 30.83% at elementary schools, down from 32.89%, 25.23% at junior high schools, down from 26.50%, and 32.77% at high schools, down from 34.70%.
¡°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 between the ages of 5 and 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% to 23.90% at kindergartens, from 36.84% to 36.07% at elementary schools, and from 60.61% to 59.35% at junior high schools. At high schools, however, the poor vision figure rose from 71.06% to 71.51%.
Despite the better readings at all levels except high schools, the ministry sees the overall trend of worsening eyesight still continuing.
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