The Formosa Cancer Foundation on Sunday held a picnic and walk in Taipei’s Dahu Park (大湖公園) to raise awareness about cancer prevention, while offering tips to avoid the condition.
Cancer has been the leading cause of death in Taiwan for 41 consecutive years, and the National Health Promotion Administration’s (HPA) cancer registry data show that on average one person died of cancer every four minutes and 19 seconds in 2020.
About 1,000 people attended the event.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
Many people lead a relatively unhealthy lifestyle, such as binge eating or eating snacks to reduce stress, and only staying at home and not exercising during weekends and holidays, said foundation chief executive officer Lai Gi-ming (賴基銘), a professor at Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital.
These habits can cause obesity and poor physical fitness, he said.
Studies have linked being overweight or obese to an increased risk of several types of cancer, so the foundation is encouraging people to follow tips to prevent it, Lai said.
A person’s cancer risk can be reduced by about 60 to 70 percent by practicing a healthy lifestyle, eating fruits and vegetables, exercising regularly, controling their weight and avoiding smoking and chewing betel nuts, he said, adding that getting regularly screened for cancer is key in identifying cancer before it progresses.
An HPA survey from 2017 to 2020 found that only 13 percent of children and 17.6 percent of young adults aged 19 to 44 were eating the recommended daily intake of three servings of vegetables, and only 6.4 percent of children and 5.9 percent of young adults were ingesting the recommended daily intake of two servings of fruit per day, the foundation said.
While children should do at least seven hours of moderate to vigorous exercise per week and adults should do two-and-a-half to five hours, the survey found that only 24.6 percent of children and 34.9 percent of young adults were doing so, it said.
Meanwhile, 26.7 percent of children and 46.7 percent of adults were overweight or obese, the foundation said.
Lai said that getting screened regularly for cancer is the most important tip, but only 51.5 percent of people eligible for routine government-funded cancer screenings get a Pap smear regularly, 32.9 get mammograms regularly and 32.5 percent get fecal occult blood tests regularly.
The WHO and many studies have found that screening can detect precancerous lesions or early-stage cancer, improving the likelihood of successful treatment.
A man surnamed Ho (何) said he traveled from Kaohsiung to Taipei to support the event, because it was the 14th anniversary of his liver transplant surgery, and he was fortunate to have discovered that he had liver cancer early in a cancer screening.
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