HEALTH MINISTRY PREPARES MEMOON HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

KUALA LUMPUR, April 17 (Bernama) -- The Health Ministry will prepare a
memorandum for the cabinet, seeking help from the relevant government
ministries, agencies and department to ensure that Malaysians become more
health-conscious and switch to a healthier lifestyle.

Director-General of Health Dr Ismail Merican said a concerted effort
by all relevant government bodies was needed to combat the growing cases of
overweight and obesity in the nation, problems which would lead to an
increase of diabetes and other heart-related illnesses.

The healthy lifestyle campaign, which was launched in the early 90s and
involved millions of ringgit, seemed unable to effectively get the message
across, he told a news after launching "The Thirteenth Scientific Meeting for
the National Heart Association of Malaysia" here Friday.

"So what is wrong? Is it because they don't understand the message? Is it
because it is difficult to change one's behaviour? Or is it because they are
surrounded by an environment that does not encourage them to have a healthy
lifestyle behaviour?

"For people to exercise people must have facilities. If we go to Western
countries, they have parks, they have walkways, they have special lanes for
people to jog, to cycle. We don't have that, every space that we have is taken
by something else," he said.

Dr Ismail said the government, local authorities and other interested
parties must find ways to encourage the people to exercise as findings showed
that about 30 per cent of Malaysians were overweight.

In his speech, Dr Ismail said that according to the Malaysian Acute Coronory
Syndrome (ACS) Registry Report in 2006, there were 31,186 admissions to the 73
coronary care units (CCU) in Malaysia, of which 12,534 were due to ACS.

The ratio of ACS admissions was 47.1 per 100,000 Malaysians in 2006 with a
rough estimate of those suffering from coronory heart disease in Malaysia being
141 per 100,000 Malaysians.

To combat this growing concern, aside from the Healthy Lifestyle Campaign,
the ministry has also adopted and developed the latest cardiac technology and
techniques in many public and private hospitals, he said.

-- BERNAMA