Health Promotion Board For Active Lifestyle

KOTA TINGGI, April 7 (Bernama) -- The government had set aside RM50 million this year to promote healthy lifestyle among Malaysians as well as to help the local sports associations overcome their shortfall in revenue due to the ban on cigarette advertisements that started this year.
Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said Friday, the RM50 million funding came under the Ninth Malaysia Plan and a board, to be known as the Health Promotion Board, would be established to manage the fund.
"The ministry will select a full-time Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to manage the board. We will get inputs and views from the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Appointments will be made on his advice," he told reporters after visiting the Kota Tinggi Hospital.
Dr Chua said the board would ensure efforts at encouraging healthy lifestyle and discouraging unhealthy habits like the 'Tak Nak' anti-smoking campaign, were conducted effectively and efficiently.
The board would also help to sponsor sporting activities as well as cultural activities that used to get funding from cigarette advertisements, he said.
He said studies conducted by the ministry also showed that Malaysians who practised healthy lifestyles had not changed much over the past ten years.
Dr Chua said, in 1996, 13 per cent of Malaysians said that they underwent extensive exercise at least three times a week, and the figure had not changed when the Health Ministry conducted another study on the same topic in 2003.
He also cited the ministry's study which showed that the number of obese Malaysians had grown from 20 per cent in 1996 to 37 per cent in 2003, and currently there were three million Malaysians who were suffering from high blood pressure and 900,000 diabetic sufferers.
Meanwhile, Dr Chua's visit also brought cheers to the Kota Tinggi Hospital.
At the hospital, he not only instantly approved a RM200,000 allocation that was requested by the hospital director Dr Morni Atan for its emergency ward, but also said that the hospital would be receiving another RM25.3 million in the next five years.
The announcement drew applause from the hospital staff.
Dr Chua said that a total of RM9.7 million would be used to build two more new hospital buildings to house its specialist clinics while the rest would be used to upgrade as well as to renew hospital equipments.