On the eve of Father’s Day, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) yesterday urged men to monitor their waistlines, as more than 30 percent of males in the nation are troubled by weight problems, which could increase their risk for a number of health conditions.
Citing the results of the Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan over the past two decades, the agency said only 11 percent of males aged 19 and above had a waistline of 90cm or larger between 1993 and 1996, but that figure climbed to 25.4 percent in 2008 and to 33.1 percent last year.
Statistics on people who received preventive healthcare services between January and June last year also showed that about 53 percent of male patients aged 40 and above were at a high risk of metabolic syndrome, while 34.8 had already developed the disorder.
Metabolic syndrome refers to a cluster of conditions such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar level, excess body fat at the waist and high cholesterol levels that can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes if they occur together.
“Men are advised to keep their abdominal waist circumference below 90cm, otherwise the extra belly fat, also known as organ fat, hinders their metabolism and causes obesity as well as high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels,” HPA Director-General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) said.
Nearly 63.8 percent of men aged 40 and above who have a waistline exceeding 90cm suffer from metabolic syndrome, Chiou said.
Despite the health risks posed by excess fat in the waist area, only 18.1 percent of respondents to a Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System telephone-based survey, conducted by the agency last year among 5,732 males aged 18 and older, measured their waist in the month before the survey.
More alarming was that about 59.8 percent of those polled did not measure their waist size in the past six months, which indicated an apparent neglect of the health problems, the survey showed.
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