Sports Nutrition in Japan

Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games are coming up in 2020, and the sports supplement/nutrition market is steadily increasing. It is common for top-level athletes to use various types of sport supplements. However, the variety of products is sometimes limited by the Japanese unique regulation, and furthermore, it is not easy to know the functions of a product appropriately because of lack of information or complex food classification system. With this situation, privately importing sport supplement via internet is increasing, but it should be noted that the risk of inadvertent doping is increasing by those products. Academic societies have trained human resources such as sports dietitians or nutrition representative & supplement advisors who are expected to help athletes and consumers. Antidoping is another important challenge in Japan, although positive cases are small. A global risk management system for antidoping certification to a sport supplement was introduced in Japan recently, and its benefit and possibility are explained in this chapter.