JUNE 16 — When I was 15, I’d be upset if I missed football for two straight days. I found ball-chasing deeply spiritual.
A fortnight ago I was with the local lads — teenagers — on our Cheras dirt-pitch and it hurt to watch many of them struggling to sprint. They play once a week, if lucky and it was not an odd fact, them moving slow-motion and lengthy intervals between lace-ups.
Not being physically active is not odd in Malaysia — it’s common — a fact of life. An unsurprising contributor to the shocking National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) by the health ministry last week. Along with diet and lifestyle.
Half the population with high cholesterol, more than a tenth of our children obese and the numbers overall getting worse by the year.
Why this rut and where do we go from here? Should we have a cola while considering this puzzle?
The question of priority
Malaysia’s policy makers, legislators and political advocates are massively unfit.
Politicians of all colours, party flags and ice cream flavour preferences are falling ill and lying in hospital beds.
In Gotham City, Health Minister S. Subramaniam raises the issue verbally and declares a Cabinet level response in good time.
But no admission of a systemic policy failure will be forthcoming.
These people have all got sick, but it is not the system’s fault. The system can only be attributed to success stories.
Yet, scant number of opposition politicians run in a month.
Which is why both sides have been abysmal when it comes to climbing the wall of indifference.
Unsettling too to know key politicians may not be fit, but they are always keen on health-angled photo-op sessions.
Juxtapose that to ex-US president George W. Bush who’d run a mile in seven minutes when he was commander in chief in his fifties.
Truth be told, any MP would win more new votes by posting a video of himself juggling a ball than delivering 10 rally speeches. Or even cook a zero-grease meal served with sugar-free tea.
Run, Forrest, run
In my social football league, players have to cough up RM25 to play because the badly managed pitch costs RM340 per team.
There are cheaper pitches like the uneven patch in the middle of the low-cost flats in Bandar Tun Razak, or another where construction pilings still stick out of the ground, but they won’t go under RM180. And they are disappearing at record rates.
The old railway field in Brickfields is no more, just another set of buildings ready for tenants.
Cochrane Road School is now an IKEA — definitely a better return on investment, sound commercial arrangement. Much better than sweaty people and their exercises.
With play space shrinking, and what is left costing an arm and a leg, is it surprising that sports is an expensive past time?
But price and scarcity are not the only obstacles.
Bangsar Sports Complex, is a decent name for a complex purportedly offering sporting activities in Bangsar. Yet the administrators of the facility are least interested in promoting sporting activities. There is no online booking. Squash, badminton, futsal and tennis courts have to be booked in person during office hours, so those interested have to find their way during office hours to avail the facilities. The facilities are run down, the toilets a mess, and there is a take it or leave it attitude with the staff.
Malaysians are expected to organise themselves and sacrifice time and money because the access points are cumbersome and discomforting.
Free potable water
When it comes to nutrition and eating out, there are numerous issues and complexities.
But, there is a common quick fix that has not been broached through legislation.
Water.
Those who drink water as a majority of their daily liquid intake are already serving their body well.
However the present situation where heartless business owners, especially franchises, charge a premium for water, the small price differential between water and sugared/milked up drinks drives more to consume the latter rather than the former.
If the prime minister can quicken things, like turn a university college to a university overnight, there are so many non-politically contentious initiatives he can spearhead, no less important, free water in all our restaurants.
More water even means less sugared, carbonated and destructive drinks. More water means there is better quality substances into the body to heal and maintain. More water means less kidney problems and diabetes.
If service cost not water cost is the real bugbear, then self-service for water is the answer.
Families
Behaviours are shaped by family.
Nothing encapsulates that then the joke “It’s not that diabetes runs in your family, it’s that no one runs in your family.”
While Malaysian families are found to go back and forth with religion, they inadvertently leave nutrition, lifestyle and sports as low priorities.
Unless staying healthy and championing behaviours of a sportsman are discussed in homes, much of the efforts outside the homes will come undone.
When parents say having their child eat right and play well is a major accomplishment for both child and parents, then nutrition and sports will be elevated.
Par for the course
There are many initiatives necessary before Malaysia becomes fit again, actually, not just statistically.
But just telling people that being healthy is good will not do the trick.
People would like politicians to make themselves examples of the new ethos.
It is clear that Malaysians in general believe that being healthy is just a nice-to-have and not a must-have. That mind-set needs undoing and that begins with the realisation that bad health means either a shorter life or a life with health difficulties.
It means the worst of worst for a person.
As I said again, it is not a sexy problem but its outcome is a gigantic problem to the lives of citizens.
It is time for politicians to win less votes and win more lives.
Because a sick nation is not a strong nation. Pray tell me if it is not.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
