ABSTRACT

Due to the decrease in the quality of human relationships not only in society widely but also within families under a lot of stress, the number of Japanese subjects with depression is increasing without regard to age and sex. More than 30,000 Japanese commit suicide each year. Our previous paper showed that mealtime was the most important chance for Japanese to communicate and

42.1 Introduction 401 42.2 Psychological E•ects of Tablecloth Color on Diners under

400-600 lx in the Dining Hall 402 42.2.1 Materials and Methods 402 42.2.2 Results 405

42.3 Psychological E•ects of Tablecloth Color on Diners under 850-1050 or 12-22 lx in the Climatic Chamber 409 42.3.1 Materials and Methods 409 42.3.2 Results 409

42.4 Psychological E•ects of FRP Tray Color on Diners 413 42.4.1 Materials and Methods 413 42.4.2 Results 415

42.5 Conclusion and Summation 415 Acknowledgments 418 References 418

cultivate mutual understandings among family members (Ohtani et al. 2003; Tomita et al. 2005a,b), but many Japanese spend mealtimes focused only on eating. If a daily comfortable dining environment can be created by using color e•ectively to promote conversation and increase energy, the number of persons who feel relieved may increase and then those who commit suicide may decrease.