Legalization of functional food in late-modern Japan: A sociological analysis of the state legitimatization of “health food” and “health drug” and some considerations of its implications for the risk-society thesis and the medicalization of life thesis

In Japan, as in other so-called developed countries, rules and regulations concerning drugs and foods have been elaborated. According to these rules and regulations, drugs, on the one hand, had to take approved shapes such as powder, pellet, tablet and so on, and they were not permitted to be advertized to be effective in disease prevention or heath maintenance. On the other hand, foods were prohibited to be sold in a drug-like shape, or with any hint of effect of disease cure/prevention or health maintenance. In 1991, in this thitherto illicit space between drug and food based on the legally rigid distinction between them, a new type of food was legalized. This type of food was allowed to advertized to be effective in prevention of a particular lifestyle-related disease, and in 2001, it became legal to sell food in a drug-like shape. This legalization of “health food” and “health drug” in the late-modern period in Japan will be analyzed from the sociological perspective, especially with reference to the interests and relative power/authority of groups and social sectors which were for or against this legalization such as state, academia, industry, and their sub-groups/sectors, and their interactions. The results will be considered in respect to their implications for sociological theories on late/post-modernity such as the risk society thesis and the medicalization of life thesis.