Stay Active, Stay Healthy

I'm surely a not a physical active person. I hardly workout, neither low nor vigorous exercise. I must admit, I do not have healthy balance diet either. Living up to 26 y/o, I'm grateful that I remain healthy and physically fit (I guess?). Due to the pandemic, I have more time for self-contemplation. 

I believe the majority knows the health benefits of maintaining a physically active and balance diet lifestyle. The evidence rate of chronic condition across the population is alarming. Everyone has been advised to take care of the health, regardless of gender, age and ethnicity. 

In a recent survey in 2017, it is surprising that 1 in 2 (51.2%) Malaysian are found to be overweight. or obese. What surprise me further is that England seems to have a lower percentage of obesity and overweight, with 28.7% and 35.6% respectively in 2017. There must be a difference between obesity and overweight. In fact, it could be bias and unfair to draw a strong conclusion based on the figure where the Malaysia survey has combine obesity and overweight in a group - the breakdown could be lower. But we can't denial that the percentage is significantly alarming, isn't? 

Unfortunately, not everyone is convinced. Everyone knows the benefits and we have been told what we should be doing since young. We are good at telling people what to do, what should be done etc. Knowing what to do and putting it into action is two different stories. Likewise, people could easily engage in doing exercise but the long-term engagement could be poor. 

There are so many reasons that hinder people from achieving the minimum physical activity - long office working hour that lead to sedentary behaviours, infrastructures that minimise active living and etc. 

A long-term engagement does not only require motivations, but also self-determination, persistence and opportunity. There would be thousands of possible enablers, but also equal amount of barriers that individual could perceive in a behaviour engagement. 

Something that we practice everyday must be something rewarding, regardless of self-initiative or forcefully. Else we would have given up.