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1. Introduction
Figure1: The 10 top causes of death in Taiwan in year 2011
According to the Taiwanese Department of Health, 9 out of the 10 top causes of death in the island during the year 2011 were chronic diseases; 6 of these chronic diseases are directly related to obesity.1
The spread knowledge that obesity a major cause of the early appearance of serious health problems, and the pressure of a social environment that has set a thin figure as global standard of beauty, has made many people obsessed about weight control. According to a Nelson survey conducted in 2008, 49% of Taiwanese people think they have overweight problems, and half of those are trying to lose weight.2
As we all know the contemporary urban lifestyle which lacks the necessary time to plan a balanced diet and practice exercise regularly, is the most important factor that leads to obesity and chronic diseases. For instance even school kids can get potato chips and carbonated beverages at convenience stores on their way back home, and more and more working housewives have given up cooking at home because eating out in Taiwan is very convenient
1 http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2011/new/jun/16/today-t1.htm
2 http://tw.nielsen.com/site/news20090212.shtml
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and they already have to face long working hours and pressure from their busy careers. The long working hours that the average Taiwanese works leave people no time for exercise.
Therefore, contemporary Taiwanese are exposed to more risk of chronic disease than previous generations. Data also shows that 51% of the male population above age 15 has either obesity or overweight problem. The percentage for female is 37%.3
Health consciousness arises not just in individuals but also in corporate institutions and due to the Karoshi problem (過勞死) more and more companies are taking measures to improve their employees’ health condition. Many companies have started to offer regular health checks. Based on the results, companies are able to identify those in the organization with high potential to develop any given chronic disease. By providing follow-up health
instruction, consultation, and body measurement tracking….etc. they are able to mitigate the growing number of chronic disease patients, and lower the related medical expense.
According to the IEK research,4 there were 7 million people suffering of chronic diseases in Taiwan in 2006. The medical expenses related were estimated to be 10 billion annually, and such number is expected to grow with the aging of the population. The value revenue of health management related business in Taiwan is estimated to be 1 billion USD each year.
The importance of eating habit in consumers’ mind
From individual consumer’s point of view, adjusting their eating habits is seen as the major pathway to a healthier life. The same consumer survey from Nelson showed that the most popular way to deal with weight losing for Taiwanese people is adjusting eating habit and with exercise ranking as second. The above result could be due to cultural differences, Asian people in general tend to emphasis more on the eating habits than exercising comparing to
3 Same source as (1)
4http://www.eettaiwan.com/articleLogin.do?artId=8800479822&fromWhere=/ART_8800479822_876 045_NT_d0a57f1e.HTM&catId=876045&newsType=NT&pageNo=null&encode=d0a57f1e
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other nations around the world. Furthermore, another survey shows that people tend to believe that adjusting their eating behavior is good for overall health improvement.
According to a market survey done by the International Food Information Council
Foundation (IFIC) in 20085, more than 70% percent of the respondents believe that taking food or drink selectively is helpful to improving cardiovascular condition, increase energy and endurance, maintain over all health level, and so on.
Notwithstanding the above mentioned factors, starting a diet is a big challenge for most people. Dieters have to face the stress caused by the reduction of their daily rations and not being able to take some of their favorite food, and on top of that they have to go around performing calorie calculations which is itself a difficult challenge. While conducting an interview with a nutritionist for this business plan, the practitioner admitted that performing weight losing calorie calculations is so complicated that she herself might give it up if she were one of her patients. For these reasons between others, people usually get caught in a cycle of starting up and giving up diet plans, losing weight just to gain it back soon afterwards.
The emergence of smart phone and application software (APPs) as a new way of self-aid health management
Thanks to the advance in information technology, there are more methods for modern people to better manage their health. One of them is telemedicine, which is a technique based on providing medical services remotely by way of medical examination machines and internet infrastructure installed in the countryside, shortening the gap between urban and rural areas.
The same technology can be applied to affect positively the health of large urban populations.
5http://www.biotaiwan.org.tw/download/structure4/%E5%8A%89%E7%BF%A0%E7%8E%B2/%E5
%85%A8%E7%90%83%E4%B8%AD%E8%8D%89%E8%97%A5%E4%BF%9D%E5%81%A5%E 9%A3%9F%E5%93%81%E7%94%A2%E6%A5%AD%E7%99%BC%E5%B1%95%E7%8F%BE%
E6%B3%81%E8%88%87%E5%B1%95%E6%9C%9B(200807).pdf
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Having abundant medical services, the problem for most inhabitants of urban environments is not finding doctors or hospitals, but is their lifestyle. Most of the urban population is made of well-educated individuals who know the basic principles that lead to a healthy life. But as mentioned above, their environment and demanding lifestyle are difficult for the practical application of those principles.
We have found that mobile applications (“Apps”) and smart phones can come into play for the above mentioned purpose. Mobile devices and related software are able to provide a specific range of medical services across different locations and time frames in a most effective way than traditional clinics and hospitals. There are more and more health related Apps being developed. Some are as simple as e-books providing health knowledge and some are more sophisticated and are able to perform basic medical measurement and tracking, such as blood pressure measuring, blood sugar level measuring, or weight control.
Seems like substituting the existing static tracking method as is practiced in hospitals and clinics with dynamic procedures similar to telemedicine would increase only the frequency and convenience of the tracking, yet research has found that the overall effect would be much deeper than that.6 Unlike the traditional way of having the patient take body measurements at home and send the record to doctors, Apps are able to give feedback instantly. They help the patient to see the linkage between his behavior and health level. Many of the users on the relevant survey responded they get to know more about how to manage health after using Apps. More important than that is the fact that instead of interacting with doctors, users are interacting with apps, they know they are the one controlling their health. They have no one else to blame thus patients become more self accountable on their health taking an active instead of a passive role regarding themselves.
6 http://www.technologyreview.com/news/425348/smart-phones-help-manage-chronic-illness/
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Utilizing Apps to satisfy the market of facilitating healthy eating habit
Eating, exercising, sleeping, and stress are important lifestyle factors that determine one’s health level. Having control of these factors in our daily life can enhance our health condition and prevent disease. Facilitating people to live a healthy life is the basic step for solving society’s health problems overall.
The Author of this business plan is not a medical doctor or nurse by training, but is eager to live a healthy life in a convenient way and is sure she is not the only one. She has found that the smart phone, due to its wide penetration in Taiwan, is a suitable tool for on-the-go health management and is eager to develop Apps that can simplified the health management process for households all over Taiwan.
Comparing to other similar Apps that focus on helping people at the individual level, the App related to this business plan is more focused on households. There are several reasons for this First of all, we believe that the foundation of a healthy diet is to start cooking at home. The most straight forward reason is one can have full control of the ingredients being used. Eating out is convenient and sometimes more appetizing however that comes at the cost of
consuming chemically processed ingredients of which we are not even aware. Eating out in some sense is actually giving the control of your health to others. This is commonly believed by most Taiwanese people, but ironically not commonly practiced, for reasons already described.
The other point the author would like to address is that psychology matters. First of all, if a family does follow the process of this App, they would only purchase what they need. No more extra food or junk food is available at home. You are away from temptation. And that make the long days of diet easier to bear. Secondly, support from family helps a lot. This App is not limited to weight losing since it is able to carry out different diet plans for each family
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member at the same time. Having more than one person in the family going on diet makes eating cautiously a family goal, and makes the dieters support each other. All of the above is a forming experience for children and as well it enhances people’s self accountability on health.
We believe the latter to be the most meaningful contribution of this business plan.
We believe that it is possible to help people in the management of their eating habits, by sorting the related challenges which are difficult and time consuming to overcome in a simpler way with the help of technology and at the same time making them more self-aware and independent.
We know that “It’s easier said than done”. But it is a goal worthy of pursuing. We believe that as long as we can provide a good tool that streamlines the whole process of diet and makes it convenient to live a healthy life, the goal would be attained to some extent. And that is all this business plan is about.