Purpose : This study was undertaken to examine the relationship between pedometer counts and food intake in Japanese elderly people.Methods : One-hundred-eighty healthy, community-dwelling elderly people were divided into three groups according to age. The number of steps taken by each subject was recorded with a pedometer over a 30-day period in August. The dietary and nutritional intakes were estimated using a food frequency questionnaire.Results : There was no significant difference in the pedometer counts between men and women. The number of steps significantly decreased with age (p<0.01). The intake of energy, protein and carbohydrate were significantly higher in men than in women (p<0.05), and they were nearly the same among the three aged groups. The calcium and vitamin C intakes after adjusting for sex and age increased with the number of daily steps, except for the intakes of energy, protein and carbohydrates.Conclusion : A higher number of daily steps was found to be associated with the calcium and vitamin C intakes.

Advances in information and communication technology (ICT)-especially, the spread of social networking services (SNSs)-have facilitated the dissemination of information and an explosion of health information lacking scientific evidence. Therefore, we believe that community pharmacies are the most suitable bases for distributing health information. In 2019, we launched the health support pharmacy “Toyonaka Model” in collaboration with the pharmaceutical association, municipal government, and university. Touch-panel digital signage (DS) was used for real-time distribution of ever-changing information and a rapid grasp of pharmacy users’ responses to various types of information. Between September 2019 and August 2021, one DS was installed in a pharmacy in each of Toyonaka City’s seven areas along with 14 questions on the usefulness of the delivered information. Respondents answered the 14 questions by a tablet or questionnaire; touch logs for DS were collected. When a pharmacy user consulted with a pharmacist about information delivered via DS, the contents were recorded and described by the pharmacist on a 4-point scale (e.g., “inquiry only,” “went through to execution”). From the 850 completed questionnaires and 61,565 touches, 88.7% of the respondents indicated that the information was useful, and 90.0% expressed interest in receiving more health information in the future. Thus, health information provided by DS may be useful to pharmacy users, as demonstrated by 113 cases in which the pharmacist was consulted regarding such information. In 62 of these cases, there were indications that the DS information might have influenced users’ behavior and intended actions.