Competition and Enlightenment for the Impossible Goal of “Finding Japan’s Best”: A Narrative of Modern Japan’s Growth Ideology in the “Healthy Child Commendation Project” (1930-1978)

This study examines the all-Japan “Healthy Child Commendation Project” as a historical product reflecting modern Japan’s changes over time. Specifically, it first traces how the nature of the project evolved in response to societal changes in modern Japan, such as perceptions of health and wartime conditions. Second, it focuses on the characteristics (and contradictions) of the selection method and the narrative that emerged from it. By exploring the history of this project, which from the beginning pursued the impossible goal of scientifically identifying “Japan’s best” healthy children each year among sixth-grade students by evaluating their physique, physical strength, academic achievements, and conduct, the study seeks to grasp an aspect of Japan’s growth ideology surrounding children’s bodies that persisted for nearly half a century, spanning both the prewar and postwar periods. Through this analysis, the study confirms that although the project officially declared its mission complete in 1978, its prolonged existence since the modern era, despite its contradictory and unattainable goals, can be attributed to the fact that, ‘despite all that,’ the desires and expectations of Japanese society at various levels regarding children’s physical growth were at play.