HOST (IN DUTCH): Hallo, insightful viewers, and welcome to today’s Healthy Living, featuring the Netherlands, a beautiful country in northwestern Europe that’s famous for its tulips, windmills and traditional wooden shoes.
Our topic is the healthy lifestyles of the country’s residents, which include cycling, gardening and close family relationships.

Narrator(m):The first thing Dutch children learn as soon as they can walk is cycling, first with stabilizers, then with some support from the parents, and then completely by themselves.

HOST: In the early １９７０s, the Dutch government began to realize that growth in automobile ownership was likely to cause environmental and safety problems, and so began encouraging the use of bicycles.
Thus, through the government’s diligent efforts, the Netherlands has become the nation with the greatest number of bicycles per capita in the world. The promotion of cycling has had helped keep the Dutch people healthy. In a recent statement, the Netherlands Transport Secretary Tineke Huizinga noted that in her nation:
『Employees who regularly travel to work by bike are, on average, ill one day less a year than the others.』  
It has been estimated that a daily １５-minute bicycle ride to and from a destination such as work at least five times a week can trim as much as five kilograms of fat in one year.

A study in the UK found those who were in the bottom third in terms of fitness as compared to the rest of the population moved up to the top-half in fitness only after a few months of regular cycling.

Narrator:With １８ million bicycles for １６ million inhabitants, the Netherlands can be called a real bicycle country. In ２００８, no less than １.４ million new bicycles were sold.

Forty-seven percent use the bike for going to school or to work. Forty percent use the bike for recreational purposes and １３％ use it for shopping, etc. When students go on a school excursion, it is generally by bike.