26 Aug 2015

Lobatse residents on Saturday August 22 met at Lobatse sports complex to join Batswana from other locations throughout the country to participate in the newly introduced national fitness day programme.

The common goal for this day was to try and influence citizens to take good care of their bodies by adopting active and healthy lifestyles. For his part, Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture (MYSC) Southern District Coordinator, Phinias Kgare implored people to live active lives as he said exercises combat health conditions and diseases.

He encouraged people to engage in household chores such as gardening, manual work or even walking to the shops as a form of exercising. In an interview with one of the participants, George Mosweu (67) said most people are not active in exercising which lead to increased cases of non-communicable diseases.

He said people should develop a training plan coupled with proper diet in their daily lives to stay healthy and fit. Mosweu lauded the government for such a good move by influencing people to live healthy lifestyles.

He said living healthy will reduce the financial burden on the national bill allowing savings to be channeled to other development needs such as infrastructure development. He said at his age of 67 years he does not suffer from any of the non-communicable diseases because he is an active person since his hey days as he used to be an athlete.

He urged people to avoid taking any sour food stuff before going for a roadwork but rather switch to fruits. He also said people should avoid fatty bread spreads but use honey frequently as it contains no fats.

In addition, he implored people to reduce large intake of red meat and eat fish and chicken as well as avoid adding uncooked salt to the food as he said it contributes to hypertension.The day’s activities included aerobics, water soccer, tug of war, races as well as screening and testing for non-communicable diseases.The day was held under theme: A healthy mind in a healthy body. Ends