The Bureau of Health Promotion urged mothers to exercise regularly to lower the chances of developing cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
According to the latest available survey conducted by the bureau in 2009, only 9.2 percent of the mothers polled exercise hard enough to break a sweat at least three times a week and for at least 30 minutes each time.
The survey showed that the younger the mothers were, the less they exercised regularly, with only 4.1 percent of mothers aged 15 to 24 doing so, 4.6 percent of those aged 25 to 34, 7.3 percent of those aged 35 to 44, 10.9 percent of those aged 45 to 54, and 12.8 percent of those aged 55 to 64.
The bureau said the WHO has identified lack of physical activity as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality, accounting for 6 percent of deaths globally.
Physical inactivity can also lead to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and obesity and can heighten the risk of developing colon cancer, hypertension, osteoporosis, lipid disorder, depression and anxiety, the bureau said.
The WHO recommends on its Web site that “adults aged 18 to 64 should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity throughout the week.” It states that physical activity does not only cover exercise, but also other activities involving bodily movement and those “done as part of playing, working, active transportation, house chores and recreational activities.”
The bureau’s recommendation for mothers is to exercise at least 30 minutes every day, and to break the time into different sessions if they deem it more feasible.
Two 15-minute sessions or three 10-minute sessions of walking and biking have the same effect as one 30-minute continuous bout of exercise, it said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching