Importance of Data Collection and Analyses of Health Check-up Data from Childhood and Throughout Life-Insights from National Survey Data.

Collecting and analyzing anthropometric and health data from routine health check-ups on children are essential for developing effective health policies to reduce the prevalence of chronic lifestyle-related disease. To estimate regional differences in the prevalence of overweight children, the 2012 National Health and Nutrition Survey and School Health Survey results were used for analysis. In prefectures with high prevalence of overweight children, the adult mean BMIs were also high. Our preliminary analysis suggests the importance of region-based survey analysis of the underlying cause of this phenomenon.