Pikmin Workplace Walking and Tree Planting: National Health Agency Urges SMEs to Promote Health

(Central News Agency reporter Chen Chieh-Ling, Taipei, 30th) The mobile game Pikmin Bloom has sparked a craze for walking, planting flowers, and raising Pikmin. Taiwanese companies are striving for creativity to promote healthy workplaces, encouraging walking 10,000 steps to plant a tree. With laborers spending over one-third of their day in the workplace, the National Health Agency encourages small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to take on the responsibility of protecting employee health. The Ministry of Health and Welfare's National Health Agency held a press conference today, announcing its collaboration with the Ministry of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Sports Administration's Sports for All Department to launch the "Outstanding Healthy Workplace and Excellent Promoter Selection Activity." This year, the participation threshold has been lowered, and new incentives for chronic disease management strategies have been added, calling on enterprises across Taiwan to assist employees in health management and comprehensively promote the upgrading and transformation of healthy workplaces. National Health Agency Director-General Shen Ching-Fen mentioned in her speech that it is undeniable that young and middle-aged people in Taiwan often work long hours, making the promotion of workplace health an urgent matter. Taiwan has many SMEs, and promoting health with limited resources requires sufficient motivation. This year, for the first time, they are cooperating with the Sports Administration, hoping to integrate sports concepts into the corporate environment and combine rapidly developing technologies such as artificial intelligence to jointly create healthy workplaces. Taiwan will officially enter a super-aging society starting in 2025, facing dual pressures of declining birth rates and an aging population in the workforce. According to statistics, the working-age population aged 45 to 64 accounted for 43% in 2022 and is expected to rise to 49% by 2070. Liu Chia-Hsiu, head of the National Health Agency's Community Health Division, reminded that as age increases, so does the risk of chronic diseases, and chronic diseases are the leading cause of death among the working-age population. Among Taiwan's top 10 causes of death, seven are related to chronic diseases, and overweight and obesity are risk factors for chronic diseases. Liu Chia-Hsiu said that according to the National Health Agency's 2025 Health Promotion Statistical Yearbook, the proportion of overweight and obese people in the total population reached 52.6%, with men reaching as high as 61.1%. Specifically, men over 35 have the highest proportion of overweight and obesity; for women, over 30% of those over 50 are overweight or obese. Liu Chia-Hsiu stated that these phenomena are mainly related to insufficient physical activity and low fruit and vegetable intake. To encourage SMEs to promote health management, for workplaces with fewer than 99 employees and limited resources, this year, the "Healthy Workplace Startup" program has been added, lowering the participation threshold. This encourages SMEs to independently assess health risks, implement improvement measures, and gradually establish a systematic health management model. In addition, Liu Chia-Hsiu mentioned that this year, chronic disease groups have been added to the Group Health Protection Award, encouraging workplaces to provide flexible working hours and remote work for employees with chronic diseases to prevent the deterioration of their conditions due to inability to take leave for treatment. For the first time, they are cooperating with the Sports Administration's Sports for All Department to include sports enterprise certification as an extra credit item in the evaluation, strengthening the concept of precise and smart health management through resource integration. Acer Information, a winner of the 2025 Health Smart Innovation Award, shared at today's press conference that it combines health and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) by launching a major walking event. For every 10,000 steps employees walk, it translates into actual carbon reduction and tree planting achievements, as well as a "Slim Eazy Weight Loss Competition," with 95 participants achieving a total weight loss of 88 kg and a waist circumference reduction of 485 cm. (Editor: Lin Shu-Hui) 1150430