This paper examines the issue of public health governance in a globalized context through the lens of nutrition policy in contemporary Japan. I focus upon the case of shokuiku (food education), institutionalized in the 2005 national-level Basic Law on Food Education. First, I consider the emergence of shokuiku within the context of recent public health policy developments, specifically, a shift towards a decentralized and personalized view of public health in Japan. Second, I examine the policy discourses around shokuiku and how they convey the relationships between food and public health. These discourses centre upon the notion of a healthy and traditional Japanese food culture practiced in the home, only recently interrupted by modernity. When presented within a health promotion framework focused upon lifestyle diseases, such ideas can enable and reinforce neoliberal approaches to public health and food security where the locus of governing authority lies largely outside the state.
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