To investigate the actual situation of obese children in a rural district and to make fundamental data available for taking steps to cope with the overweight problem, we performed a logitudinal study of obesity incidence in senior high school students over the whole period ofattendance at school from the first year until graduation. The subjects were 338 male and 387 female students. The degree of obesity was determined in accordance with Murata's index.
Our findings were compared with the results of a similar investigation covering 238 male and 163female senior high school students in an urban district of Hokkaido.
The obesity incidence was significantly (p<0.05) higher among the rural students than among their urban counterparts, regardless of sex. In the rural district, 18 boys and 17 girls had already been regarded as obese when they were admitted to their junior high school, and 14 (78%) of those boys and 7 (42%) of those girls remained obese until 14 years of age.
However, the number of obese children increased rapidly when they entered the period of adolescent growth spurt but most of those obese children came within normal range of body weight by 14 years of age.
Based on these characteristics of childhood obesity, we should encourage children, especially in early infancy, to have proper exercise and to follow good health practices.

To investigate the actual situation of obese infants in rural districts and the onset of obesity, we performed a longitudinal study of obesity incidence in day nursery infants aged from 2 to 6 years. The subjects were 124 males and 96 females. The degree of obesity was determined in accordance with Murata's index. Our findings were compared with the results of a similar investigation composed of 113 male and 95 female infants in an urban district of Hokkaido.
The obesity incidence was slightly higher among the rural infants than their urban counterparts, regardless of sex, but the difference was not significant (p<0.05). On this longitudinal study it was showed that the obesity incidence in males leaps at 3 and 4 years of age.
Based on these findings, we should encourage parents and infants, especially in early infancy, to have proper exercise and follow good health practice.

In order to know the present state of mass survey for large-bowel cancer in rural areas, we gathered the results of colorectal screening in 1989 from 45 hospitals or cancer detection center related to agricultural cooperatives of all over Japan.
In all of the 45 institutions, method of screening was fecal occult blood test, and in most of them, the stool study was immunological, of one day, and without meal restriction. Methods of further precise examination such as barium enema, total colonoscopy, sigmiodoscopy, or proctoscopy, solely or combined, were employed depending to the facilities.
The total number of examinees were 194, 834, and 8, 523 (4.4%) had a positive reaction for occult blood. Further precise examinations were performed in 4, 351 (59.7%) examinees, and 148 cases of large-bowel cancer were detected. The detective rate of cancer in total examinees was 0.08%. Among these 148 cases of colorectal cancer, 43 cases (51.8%) were in early stage. Examinees in their fifties were the most in number, and both the rate of positive reaction and the rate of cancer detection were increased as the age gets older.

During the 10-year period from January 1978 to December 1987, our department of surgery performed a total of 1, 839 surgical operations for cancer of the stomach. The surgical removal rate stood at 96.9%, and 80.2% of the patients who underwent surgery were cured. The cases of early grastic cancer accounted for 54.3%. The death rates under and after the operation were 0.3% and 0.8%, respectively.
The 5-year suvival rates for progressive cancer removal cases and cured cases are 53.9% and 74.2%, respectively.
To improve the results of treatment, improvements should be made to the method of physical examination for early detection of diseases and diagnostics, and surgical techniques. In addition, interdepartmental collaboration in therapy is called for.