more Singaporean exercising

More people exercising: SSC survey@straits times

MORE people in Singapore are now exercising and playing some form of sports regularly. More are also into jogging.

These are the findings which have emerged from an internal survey conducted by the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) on 4,000 households in September last year.

The SSC found that 57 per cent of those polled participate in sports and exercise at least once a week, an increase from 46 per cent in 2009. It is also higher than the 55 per cent recorded in 2006. The percentage of people who exercise at least three times a week has also gone up - from 22 per cent in 2009 to 26 per cent last year.

The survey also found that jogging is the most popular form of physical activity, followed by swimming and walking.

However, it seems that only certain groups of people, who have more time on their hands, tend to exercise more. For when the findings were broken down according to age-groups, teenagers aged 13-19 were found to be the most active (83 per cent). They were followed by senior citizens aged 60 and above (59 per cent).

In contrast, young adults aged 20-39 (51 per cent) and those aged between 40-59 (49 per cent) were found to be the least active.

On the whole, it looks like the SSC has achieved its aim of getting more people in Singapore to exercise.

Back in 2006, the SSC had vowed to target the specific needs of different age groups to get at least 50 per cent of Singaporeans active by this year. This was following the release of the results of the National Sports Participation Survey, which is conducted every five years. Back then, many people blamed work and family commitments for a lack of time for exercise.

SSC's Sports Pathways Development senior director Dr Bervyn Lee said: 'In the last five years, the SSC has launched various initiatives to encourage sports participation in Singapore at all levels and demographics.'

These initiatives include the Sports Education Programme introduced in 2007, the Let's Play movement in 2008, and the inaugural Singapore National Games next year, a community multi-sports competition.