4 Discussion
obesity
OBESITY, RECRUITMENT
To our knowledge, the current study is the first feasibility study of a Japanese Teaching Kitchen program involving Japanese employees with obesity. Our results suggest that the Japanese Teaching Kitchen program is feasible in this workplace with high program completion rates (91.7% for the weekly group and 75.0% for the bi-weekly group); and, that this program led to improvements in participants' biometrics, lifestyle behaviors, and HR-QoL.In line with Teaching Kitchen programs originally developed in the US (One of the originalities of the Japanese Teaching Kitchen program is that the program made use of the effectiveness of Another original approach in the Japanese Teaching Kitchen program is that we have developed a web app and used it in conjunction with the face-to-face classes. The app enabled participants to access class materials, record what they did to improve their lifestyles, and receive message from physicians and dietitians based on their records. In the current study the participants could only use the app during the intervention (four weeks for weekly group and eight weeks for bi-weekly group) to assess the feasibility of this app-based approach. As the next step, we will modify the app to maintain the efficacy of the Japanese Teaching Kitchen program even after the intervention finishes and examine its' effectiveness and potential for improvement in another study.In this study, we randomly divided participants into weekly and bi-weekly groups independent from their preferences to see which is more feasible and effective. The weekly group showed higher program completion rates than the bi-weekly group and may be more acceptable to Japanese adults. There were no significant differences in satisfaction with class contents between the two groups, except for the mindfulness lecture. This difference may be influenced by the small number of participants who completed the satisfaction questionnaire (The current study is the first feasibility study of Japanese Teaching Kitchen program and showed the feasibility and effectiveness of the program in various aspects. However, there are several limitations that should be noted. First, all participants were employees of one Japanese company (NISSIN Foods Holdings). Although the company had no input into the design of the study, or analysis of the data collected, their cooperation in recruiting participants (sending emails for recruitment and allowing participants to take the Teaching Kitchen program in their working time) will need to be reassessed in subject populations from other employers and work settings. Second, as the current study had a short-term intervention and follow-up period, we could not evaluate the long-term efficacy of the intervention. Third, the questionnaires used in the study to examine the lifestyle behaviors, HR-QoL, and satisfaction were based on self-report. Although most of the questionnaires were highly validated and consistent with previous studies on Teaching Kitchen programs in Western countries (