MANILA -- The youth, many of whom live a sedentary lifestyle with the advances in technology, are encouraged to get into a healthy lifestyle.
This, as the National Youth Commission (NYC) and the Philippine Heart Association join hands in promoting a fit and healthy lifestyle among young Filipinos
In the relaunching of Philippine Heart Association's FitFil Movement at Isla Ballroom of EDSA Shangri-La Hotel in Mandaluyong City on Tuesday, NYC Commissioner Rhea Peñaflor said the agency's involvement focuses on promoting healthy lifestyle and prevention of drugs or substance-abuse among the 30 million youth in the country.
"We know very well that our Filipino youth are vulnerable because they have the tendency to try (drugs and other illegal substance). We want them to get high on fitness and not on drugs. And we want health and fitness or healthy lifestyle be part of the program for youth suffering from drugs and alcohol dependency," said Peñaflor in her message.
Peñaflor said the advocacy of promoting healthy lifestyle is in line with the Philippine Youth Development Plan 2017-2022 of the Duterte administration where they are putting priority on the promotion of active, healthy lifestyle among the youth.
Citing a global status report of the World Health Organization (WHO) which states that non-communicable diseases kill up to 40 million people every year, Peñaflor said there is a need to protect the youth and involve them in activities that promote healthy lifestyle as they deal with the illegal drugs problem.
"We believe that a healthy youth makes a healthy nation," she said.
In an interview, PHA incoming president Dr. Nanette Rey welcomed the involvement of the NYC in the advocacy to promote a healthy lifestyle.
"This is the first year that they (NYC) to be actively involved. It is very important that they will learn how to do healthy lifestyle early on, not only to look good but for them to be healthy," said Rey.
She said that in a recent study among high school students regarding prevention of vascular disease, they found out that there is a "very high" knowledge in terms of getting healthy but a low knowledge on the risk factors associated with vascular diseases.
"They do not know that age is related to heart disease. They do not know that gender has relationship to heart disease. They do not that diabetes is related to heart disease. They do not know that smoking is related to heart disease. There are so many things they may do not know," she said, adding that having understanding on the importance of keeping oneself fit is a way to prevent and reduce cases of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc..
In a separate interview, FitFil Movement Coach Jimmy Saret said a step close to the goal to make Filipinos healthy is by getting them involved in fitness promotion activities.
Saret added that there is also a need to focus on the youth as it is observed that the youth are engaged in sedentary lifestyle. "Some of them are less active, hooked into their gadgets, and the food they eat is unhealthy too," he said.
It is also seen that many of them are getting obese which is a risk factors to the rise of NCDs. "It seems that they are getting the diseases at an early age, so the more they have to get into some fitness work," he said.
He said under the FitFil plan, they will conduct fitness camp activities in the barangay level.
The FitFil Movement, launched in 2017 by PHA, aims to promote weight loss by engaging in physical activities to prevent NCDs.
He said the Philippine National Police was one of the government agencies that participated in the movement and promised to achieve a 500,000 pounds weight loss among its overweight and obese personnel.
To date, according to Saret, the PNP was able to surpass the said target by contributing a total of 637,000 pounds for the weight loss advocacy.
"So from one million target, we were able to achieve 1.02 Million (pounds) for weight loss movement," he said.
For the next three years, he said that they are aiming to achieve a total of 10 million (pounds) weight loss. (PNA)
