Our GOH, Bro Lim Swee Say, SG NTUC, our Special Guest, Mdm Yu Foo Yu Shoon, Minister of State, MCYS, sister Nora Kang, Chairperson of the NTUC Women’s Committee, NTUC CC members, NTUC Women’s Committee Members, union leaders and friends,
1. First, let me wish all our sisters a Happy International Women’s Day. Every year, the NTUC Women’s Development Secretariat organizes the IWD to mark the significant contributions that women all over the world have made.
2. Our theme for this year is “Just for the HEALTH of it”. According to a National Health Surveillance Survey conducted by the MOH in 2007, only 22.2% of our women exercised regularly and an alarming 55% of the women did not exercise at all, even when they have the leisure time, compared to about 45% for the men.
3. The three main reasons that women gave for not exercising were no time because of work or family commitment (54.6%), too tired because of work commitment (12.1%) and too lazy (11.6%).
4. These figures are quite alarming, as we know that those who do not exercise regularly are more prone to all kinds of illnesses, especially the chronic ones such as diabetes and high blood pressure, which leads to coronary heart diseases, kidney failure and other major health problems.
Launch of Health Video
5. That is the reason why for this year’s IWD, we have chosen on focus and health, and want to encourage our women to exercise regularly. NTUC WDS has developed a video which sets out a set of eight exercises for women to increase their fitness level. The exercises are meant for anyone with any level of fitness, anytime and anywhere. It is suitable for our women working in the office or factory or even for housewives. All our 4000 participants today will get a copy of the video and we will subsequently distribute them to all our unions, employers who are our partners and job seekers who seek help under our Back2Work Programme.
Launch of Workplace Weight Management Programme
6. In addition, in collaboration with the Health Promotion Board, we will also be embarking on a new initiative to promote healthy living at the workplace by educating and engaging employees on the importance of weight management. According to the same MOH health survey, obesity has increased steadily among adults aged 16 to 69 from 5.1% in 1992 to 6.9% in 2004. Obesity has become one of the major risk factors for a number of chronic diseases.
7. NTUC WDS will be working with HPB to offer a new weight management programme for companies and their employees, where interactive health workshops will be conducted and BMI machines made available at the workplaces for employees to use. Other services such as a health hotline manned by HPB nurses will also be offered. These programmes are available for both male and female employees.
8. Through this programme, we hope to encourage employers to cultivate healthy lifestyle practices among employees, which will translate into higher productivity, a reduction of unnecessary health-related costs and a stronger morale among the employees. This new initiative will be implemented in April 2010.
9. Today, the HPB has made available a BMI machine at their booth and SingHealth will also provide some health screenings at their booth.
Conclusion 10. I urge our sisters to make use of the exercise video to help you to exercise regularly and spread the message to your family members and friends. You could exercise together as a family at home or with a group of friends. Before I started exercising regularly, it was so difficult to start but once started, I feel that I have to exercise at least four times a week otherwise I feel very uncomfortable. So, it is basically a question of getting started and making it a part of your daily routine. Staying healthy is not about living up to 100 years but it is all about how well we are living today so that we can perform our multiple daily tasks well and live a happy life.
11. I wish all our sisters a Happy Women’s Day and I want to also thank all the brothers present here today for your strong support and all our unions for the strong turnout.
12. Finally, I wish to thank our GOH, Bro Lim Swee Say, our Secretary General for his strong support in gracing this occasion and our Special Guest Mdm Yu Foo Yee Shoon for her presence.
Thank you.
