Dr. Anthony encouraging persons to exercise more

Mar 15, 2009 Sports

Advocating walking clubs in every community, Min. ready to

support

By Franklin Wilson
Minister of Sport Dr. Frank Anthony is encouraging more Guyanese to walk as a means of keeping healthy and in shape.
In offering comments on the subject, Dr. Anthony, who has been an advocate for persons to exercise more, reiterated the fact that more persons are becoming obese due to poor eating habits and lack of exercise.
Walking he said is a simple way of being active and keeping fit.
The Minister noted that as the society becomes more affluent people tends to drive a lot instead of walking.
To prevent this he suggested that two things can be done.

“One is to eat properly and the other is to exercise and what we are saying is that people should work out at least 30 minutes every day, this would be the ideal, but at least if you do 30 minutes every two or three days that would help you to stay fit.
This is something personal it is for your health, it helps to prevent so many diseases and help you to live longer and be more productive.”
Dr. Anthony however said he is very pleased with the number of people he would see exercising in that National Park on a daily basis.

“I’ve seen a lot of people also on the sea walls and I think what we need to do is replicate that so that in every community we can have walking clubs where people can go to the community centers and walk and it will be a very good thing.
I know in some communities people fell a little stigma attached to it, that if somebody goes out and walk they are showing off or something of the sort, it should not be viewed as that.”
It should be viewed he said as people helping themselves to live a healthy life and that is what we should promote.

“So I would like to encourage walking clubs across communities and the Ministry is willing to play a role in facilitating this.
If people need advice on how to start a club like this we can work with them, the NDC’s and people in charge of open spaces in communities to make them ready for walkers.
If any group is interested in this we are willing from the Ministry’s side to facilitate that.”
This sort of development Dr. Anthony suggested would make the communities healthier and by extension, we would have a healthier and more productive Guyana.

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