More that 33 percent of the nation’s women have a waistline of more than 80cm, according to the results of surveys conducted by the Bureau of Health Promotion and highlighted yesterday on International Women’s Day.
The bureau’s section chief Chen Yen-fang (陳延芳) said an adult woman’s waistline should not exceed 80cm, but added that the behavior risk factor survey conducted by telephone among nearly 17,000 people last year showed that 58 percent of the respondents did not know that their waistline exceeded the bureau’s recommended maximum.
Chen said that a survey on national nutrition and health changes found that the proportion of women with a waistline exceeding 80cm rose to 33.6 percent in the 2005-2008 period from 20.2 percent recorded in a 1993-1996 survey.
Chen said that the number grew by 1 percent per year between 1993 and 2005, reflecting a trend toward obesity, which she said could lead to risks of high triglycerides, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
The bureau suggested that women cut their consumption of sugary beverages such as bubble milk tea to one cup a day, take public transportation and walk for at least 15 minutes a day.
It also said women should increase their consumption of vegetables and cereals, minimize consumption of fried and processed food and skip late-night snacks in order to trim their waistlines.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS