Working towards a health-in-all-policies approach |07 March 2023
Health Minister Peggy Vidot and Youth, Sports and Family Affairs Minister Marie-Celine Zialor led the discussion yesterday (Photos: Joena Meme)
Sports as a tool to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages
According to the World Health Organisation’s sports and health programme, sports and health go hand in hand, offering people all over the world, of different abilities and ages, the chance for happier, healthier and more productive lives.
The programme was set up to capitalise on the great potential of helping people worldwide lead healthy lives through promoting participation in sports and working with the sports community to advance health for all.
With the rapid increase in illnesses and in many cases death associated to lack of physical activities, the local health authority will from now focus on stronger collaboration with various sectors to explore new ways of working together in developing a better national policy, through Health in All Policies (Hiap), aiming at improving health and wellbeing of the people of Seychelles.
The HiAP is a collaborative approach that integrates and articulates health considerations into policymaking across sectors to improve the health of all communities and people.
It recognises that population health is not merely a product of health sector programmes but largely determined by policies that guide actions beyond the health sector, while policy in every sector of government can potentially affect health and inequities in health.
To share ideas and come up with a common agenda, the Ministry of Health is initiating a series high-level dialogues with partner ministries as part of the implementation of the national health strategic plan.
The first meeting in the series took place yesterday at the Eden Bleu Hotel, and it was the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family Affairs which brought in ideas on how to better cooperate in boosting local lives and wellbeing.
Led by Minister Marie-Celine Zialor, the team from the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family Affairs included principal secretaries for youth and sports Ralph Jean-Louis, his counterpart for family affairs Clive Roucou, chief executives of the National Sports Council (NSC) and the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC) Marc Arrisol and Albert Duncan, as well as experts and technicians from various councils and departments within the ministry.
Launching yesterday’s work, Minister for Health Peggy Vidot noted that other than being an asset, health is also a product of development, while people put high value on health and wellbeing since it is core to their happiness.
She said the benefits of good health include a long, fulfilling productive life in which a person can enjoy studying, working and also caring for others, while healthy children learn more effectively.
“Health is both an enabler and prerequisite for attaining not only an individual’s goal, but also society’s, societal and economic goals,” further noted Minister Vidot.
On behalf of her ministry, Minister Zialor noted that since they hold the portfolio responsible for children, youths, adults and senior citizens, in other words the country’s lifespan, it is crucially important they get actively involved, especially in setting up a culture of prevention, rather than cure.
She pledged the full support of her ministry, especially in coming up with tangible projects, all in line with the ongoing restructuration, in the attempt to rejuvenate Seychelles’ sports, bringing it to the community.
The overall objective of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) sports and health programme is to accelerate progress on sustainable development goal 3, which is to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages by implementing WHO’s 13th General Programme of Work for achieving universal health coverage, addressing health emergencies and promoting healthier populations.
Regular physical activity helps prevent and treat non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and breast and colon cancer.
It also helps prevent hypertension, overweight and obesity and can improve mental health, quality of life and well-being. Yet, much of the world is becoming less active.
As countries develop economically, levels of inactivity increase. In some countries, these levels can be as high as 70%, due to changing transport patterns, increased use of technology, cultural values and urbanisation.
Working in partnerships, WHO supports countries to implement a whole-of-community approach to increase levels of physical activity in people of all ages and abilities.
Global, regional and national coordination and capacity will be strengthened to respond to needs for technical support, innovation and guidance.
Physical activity and health
Sport and physical activity has long been used as a tool to improve mental, physical and social well-being.
Physical inactivity is a major risk factor associated with a large number of lifestyle diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.
Sports projects that specifically focus on health outcomes generally emphasise the promotion of healthy lifestyle choices among children and young people as well as adults to combat inactivity, the use of sport as a tool to raise awareness on communicable diseases in developing countries, for example, through district or national health campaigns supported by athletes and sports competitions, the use of sport as a didactical tool to communicate vital health-related information to ‘at risk’ groups, the use of sport to mobilise hard-to-reach groups as part of large-scale health campaigns, including for example, communities with low population density.
Sport is considered to contribute to achieving mental health objectives, including addressing depression and stress-related disorders.
During recent decades, there has been a progressive decline in the level of physical activity in people's daily lives in developed countries.
For a majority of people, little physical effort is involved any more in their work, domestic chores, transportation and leisure, while specific health risks differ between countries and regions, the fact remains that physical inactivity is a major risk factor for most common non-communicable diseases and physical activity can counteract many of the ill effects of inactivity.
The WHO estimates that, with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa, chronic diseases are now the leading causes of death in the world, while it cites four non-communicable diseases that make the largest contribution to mortality in low- and middle-income countries, namely: cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes.
Although research interest on physical activity and health dates back to the 1950s, the breakthrough in the scientific evidence on health benefits of physical activity largely took place during the 1980s and 1990s.
There is an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence on the positive effects of sport and physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Compiled by Roland Duval
