To meet the changing lifestyles and diversified values among Japanese people, a comprehensive set of strategies has been developed and employed to encourage them to play sport.　SfA promotion strategies in Japan have consisted of many complementary components: policy and program development, leadership training, mass participation in special events, support of sport organizations, targeted educational resources, use of media and communication activities, evaluation of physical fitness and health status, volunteer training and management, community advocacy activities; environmental change, and award programs and other incentives.

　The following section discusses in detail the first three strategies at the national level: 1) policy and program development, 2) leadership training and certification programs, 3) mass participation in special events.　These are major components of strategic actions that have influenced the current nationwide SfA movement in Japan.

　In order to execute more effective sport policy, MEXT reorganized its sport office structure in July; 1988 and divided the previous sport section into creating two new sections; lifelong sport section and competitive sport section.　This restructuring has two purpose; to meet the needs and diversification of sport, to improve the competitive levels of the Japanese athletes in international competitions.

　The English name of the lifelong sport section is Division of Sport for All.　This section is expected to take an leading role in the promotion of the nation's Sport for All.　The establishment of Division of SfA was based on the recommendation form the 3^rd Report of an Extraordinary Educational Committee in April, 1987, which had been a private advisory committee of Prime Minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone.　The report stressed the importance of promoting the nation's sport covering both aspects of competitive and lifelong sport.　Moreover, MEXT submitted the report "On the Promotion Policy of Sports toward 21^st century" to the Council on Health and Physical Education in April, 1988, based on the report of the health education committee about "Basic Policy for the Promotion of Physical Activities and Sports" in December, 1972, and the reports of the above-mentioned Extraordinary Educational Committee and of the cabinet meeting.

　MEXT received the report, the content of which showed the basic policy for the diffusion method of sport toward the beginning of 21^st century in consideration for cooperation with physical activities and sport at schools covering both aspects of lifelong and athletic sport and summarized the important policies required for the necessity of selective implementation of lifelong and athletic sport in November, 1989.　In order to realize this recommendation, MEXT holds Sport for All Conventions and National Sports and Recreation Festivals ever since on the report's recommendation.

　The former MHW also started the Healthy Japan Program in 1978 and sifted their previous policy to cope with the treatment of illness to the new policy of prevention of illness.　And it was confirmed that the establishment of life habit with a good balance of nutrition, exercise and rest as the basis of a healthy lifestyle.

　In 1988, this program was renamed Active Health Plan after I O years and clearly emphasized the importance of exercise for health.　MHW pointed out the clear imbalance of nation's excess of nutrition and lack of exercise as its background.　As the concrete strategies of Active 80 Health Plan, MHW has promoted the diffusion of the required exercise, making the guidelines of exercise, training health and fitness leaders and instructors, the accreditation programs of health promotion facilities and the National Health and Welfare Festival (Nenrinpic).

　The former ML has proposed the Silver Health Plan (SHP), which promotes healthy lifestyles among the middle-aged and aged people, to cope with the trend of the advanced age of labor since 1979.　The Industrial Health and Safety Law was amended with the aim of continuous and intentional concrete health method for the labor in May; 1988 and has been in effect since October 1^stof the same year.　With this amendment of the law, SHP was further developed and they started to promote Total Health Promotion Plan (THP), which is the movement of making the entire work force, regardless of age, mentally and physically healthy.　ML has provided the training of healthcare leaders and trainers, assistance for the private companies to measure health and guidance of health and the certification programs for the outside specialized organizations as the leaders.

　In March 2000, MHLW launched a 10 year nationwide campaign called "Healthy Japan 21" to counter the super-aged society and chronic diseases by encouraging people to lead healthy lifestyle.　One aspect of this campaign aims to raise awareness about the importance of physical activities and sport among people. One of the goals is to set a standard for minimum walking steps to be taken per day to increase the level of physical activities.

　METI established the Sports Industry Study Committee in November, 1989. METI also published a report entitled as Sports Vision 21, which proposed the basic scenario to enable the sports industry to be developed as one of the most growing industries in 2l^st century in September, 1990.

　The prefecturual and local governments have also repeatedly announced the similar sport promotion project entitled "Towards the 21^st Century" According to the survey by the Competitive Sport Division of the Physical Education Bureau of MEXT (1994), 40 prefectures have included sport in their promotion scheme.　Fifteen prefectures of theirs have made the plans by sport only.　 Moreover, 4 prefectures among those which have no plans of sport in their promotion scheme, reported to have sport in their projects in the future.

　In promoting SfA in Japan, the training, qualification of leaders, and the establishment of certification programs have been of major importance. The spread of public leaders and instructors for sport progressed under the leadership mainly of local governments after the enactment of the Social Education Law in 1949.　The Sports Promotion Law, enacted in 1961, stipulated that every local government should be permitted to appoint community sports commissioners as part-time civil servants.　At present, there are more than 62,000 community sports commissioners in municipal boards of education around the country who teach sport at the local level.　One in four of them is a woman.　In the 1970s, SfA movement spread throughout Japan, and in 1975 MEXT introduced a system by which prefectures send instructors to municipalities, with the central  government supporting half of the expenses.　In the 1980s there was a rapid increase both in the number of commercial sport facilities, such as fitness clubs and swimming clubs, and in the number of full-time professional instructors at these facilities rose.　The problem of setting qualifications for instructors then emerged, and in 1988 MEXT introduced a new qualification program in response.　The three types of qualifications; 1) instructors for commercial settings, 2) instructors for competitive sport coaches, and 3)instructors for community settings were established, and they were divided into three levels; 1) basic, 2) intermediate, and 3) advanced.　For each level, the government grants qualifications after a period of training in scientific coaching methods and sport medicine.　The number of people who qualified under this system had reached 84,000 by 2001.　In addition, in 1988 MHLW introduced two forms of public certification for health and fitness leaders and instructors. About 23,000 persons have acquired this certification by 2002.　Furthermore, MHLW introduced two types of certifications; healthcare trainers and healthcare leaders, who work for company employees.

　These certified instructors and leaders have been playing the important role of instructing sport to people, managing sport facilities, developing and coordinating sport programs and events.　In order to more effectively and actively utilize these human resources and to enable residents in the community to gain access to information about sport instructors, "Leaders Bank" registration system for sport instructors was developed at the prefectural and municipal levels.

　A highly effective component of SfA comprehensive strategy is staging a large scale sporting event for mass participation.

　Challenge Day is a friendly competition between communities by comparing the percentage of residents who participate in any physical activity for 1 5 continuous minutes on the last Wednesday in May.　It was originally developed by Dr. Russ Kisby, the president of a Canadian Sport for All promotion agency, ParticipACTION.

　It was first introduced in Japan in 1988 when Nayoro city in Hokkaido competed with Canadian sister city, Lindsay in Ontario.　Sasakawa Sports Foundation became the national organizer in 1993 and successfully expanded Challenge Day nationwide since then.　The number of the participating community in Challenge Day has been on the constant rise.　In 2001, approximately 650,000 residents of 62 participating communities took part in Challenge Day in Japan.　(See Table 3).

　In each participating community, various elaborately planned sporting events took place, such as fun walk, tug of war, light exercise at the work place.　Such activities on Challenge Day were oftentimes taken up by local mass media.　Therefore the participating communities develop not only sport programs, but may also arrange other events, such as traditional local dancing festivals at the venues to publicize its community's cultural heritage.

　

　

　Emphasizing the purpose of providing the nation with opportunities to participate in sports-recreation activities and to foster exchange across different generations in stead of competition with one another, this festival has been held annually since 1988, when it was held in Yamanashi prefecture for the first time.　This event has been taking place under the co-sponsorship of MEXT, host prefectures, JASA, NRAJ and the National Federation of the Commissioners of Physical Education.　The opening ceremony of this event starts with folk entertainment, which creates an atmosphere suitable for exchange. There are sport meetings by events centering around new types of sport that can be enjoyed by anyone.　There held also symposiums and Sports Forum in which people are able to experience various sporting activities and health clinics.

　National Health and Welfare Festival also known as Nenrinpic (nenrin means the annual ring of tree) has been held since 1988, when the 50th anniversary of the foundation of MHLW in Japan was celebrated.　Different prefectures take turn to sponsor this annual event.　This festival is held with the purpose of maintaining and promoting the nation's health, enhancement of social participation and of something-to-live-for for the elderly and contribution to the promotion of an energetic long-life-time society with communication.　This health and sport event features traditional sport that can be enjoyed throughout one's life such as kendo, kyudo (Japanese archery), taiqi, naginata (Japanese halberd) etc., as well as marathon exchange meeting and various new sport.

　Japan Three Day March is the largest walking festival in Japan.　This event is held annually during 3 days, which include the first Sunday in November with the motto of 'Walking Renaissance" and the participants are to walk at Musashino and Hikino hill in Saitama, near Tokyo.　As a major sport event affiliated with the International Marching League and also as the central convention of Japan Marching League & International and Japan Volkssport League, Japan Three Day March attracted many walkers from Japan and overseas every year.　This walking event is not a competition but rather a fun walk in which the participants walk for 3 days in three different categories: 10 km per day; 20 km per day and 50 km per day.　The number of participants has been increasing every year.　During the period between November 2nd to 4th, 2001, the 24th annual convention was held with 84,525.