"Our program is aimed at educating people to the dangers of being overweight, but we are certainly not saying thin is beautiful and nor are we acknowledging or promoting the use of slimming aids," said the health department's deputy commissioner. "What we are doing is asking people to watch their diets and take regular exercise."
Although those who participated in the recent Taipei City poll were all adults, the problem of obesity is not solely confined to the nation's older generation. Over the past decade obesity in Taiwan's schools has also become a weighty issue.
A report recently published by the Taipei City Government's Department of Health found that one in five or 20 percent of all elementary and secondary students aged between 13 and 17 are overweight.
Of the 30,981 primary school students in Taipei 15.9 percent were found to be obese. The percentage of the city's middle school students who were overweight proved much the same, with 15.76 percent of the 32,226 students being pronounced medically obese.
The capital's high schools, however, fared a little better, with only 11.63 percent of the 36,205 students weighing in at well over the BMI norm.
"The problems with obesity in children are two-fold. Firstly the pressure to achieve in the academic field has meant that students are forced to spend long hours at a desk studying and secondly the affluence of their parents means they can afford to purchase food anytime they want," Liu said.
Under the auspices of the Ministry of Education 200 elementary and junior high schools established weight-control programs for obese students' two years ago. Since then nearly all of the nations schools have set up their own classes. Physical education classes in all of Taipei's primary schools are now mandatory, with schools required to run at least two 30 minute classes twice a week.
Even with the recent changes in both community and school health education the slimming down of Taiwan could, according to some, take quite some time, if it materializes at all.
"I think it's a fact of modern day life anywhere. As the economy grows people get lazy and want for more, which is something that is not going to stop overnight," Chen said. "I mean, even going for a walk has become something of an effort ... you sit at home and receive emails instead of walking to the post office and when people go on holiday they sit on a bus and look out of the windows."
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