Healthy lifestyle

Instill healthy lifestyle from young

I refer to your front page report “Soi Lek on a mission to check lifestyle disease” (Sunday Star,March.26).Indeed it was really encouraging to see our Health Minister leading the nation towards a healthy lifestyle. Proper nutrition and exercise are the two most important contributing factors towards a healthy life.

It is however hardly surprising that only 80% of Malaysians exercise as situation in the urban settings is anything but conducive to exercise.

Importance of a healthy lifestyle must be instilled at a very young age. Our education system from the very beginning is all geared towards examination. Sport is hardly given prominence in schools. Physical exercise classes are taken over for extra coaching in examination subjects even in Standard 6 (UPSR) at the tender age of 12. This unhealthy trend continues well into secondary schools and subsequently into working life.

Furthermore the children do not get a nutritionally balanced diet as the school hours are long with no adequate breaks for proper dining. Therefore they settle for junk food.

Young adults especially in urban areas have hardly any time or venues for exercise. Traffic jams take a great toll on them as many of them travel miles to and from the place of study or work. They leave home very early in the morning and reach home late in the evening or even night.

Recreational venues are also badly lacking in the major towns and cities.Fields, parks, hills and beaches are depleted by the so-called development projects.

Today we have to drive many miles to the nearest recreational facility. In fact the risk of dying from road accidents while jogging, walking or trying to reach the recreational centers is very much higher than death from diseases due to lack of exercise itself.
According to the health minister, Government has agreed to allocate RM50mil for the Health Promotion Board, which will be set up under his ministry to carry out activities to promote a fitter Malaysia.

This money should be utilized to set up more recreational centers and gymnasiums in all cities at affordable cost for all. All government and private offices should also be encouraged to set up their own in-house gymnasiums.

Our schools must re-emphasis the importance of sports, so that the children are instilled the culture of exercise from a very early age.

The government should be serious in promoting a healthy lifestyle by providing more and easily accessible recreational places. It is useless to keep harping on healthy lifestyle when the basic facilities for that are hardly available to the ordinary man on the street.

Dr.Chris Anthony