Obesity Health Promotion Campaign in Singapore

Running head: OBESITY HEALTH PROMOTION CAMPAIGN IN SINGAPORE 1
Obesity Health promotion Campaign in Singapore
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OBESITY HEALTH PROMOTION CAMPAIGN IN SINGAPORE 2
Obesity Health promotion Campaign in Singapore
Advances in healthcare development have led to a reduction in the prevalence of
communicable diseases. Currently, the global focus is on major non-communicable diseases that
include diabetes, cancer, and obesity. Obesity, in particular, poses a major challenge to many
countries due to its complex nature. Obesity as a disease owes its complexity to the multi-
dimensional factors causing it that include sedentary lifestyle, genetic predispositions, poor
nutrition, lack of education, and socioeconomic status. At the fundamental level, obesity involves
a functional imbalance between energy consumed through food and its expenditure through
physical activity. On the global scale most of the developing countries are grappling with the
increasing incidence of obesity (Gupta et al., 2010). Singapore is among the countries facing
health challenges in relation to obesity and developed elaborate health promotional campaigns to
fight the increasing incidence of obesity.
In Singapore, there are high death cases associated with cardiovascular diseases, second
only to cancer. Lee et al., (2016), notes that there is a high correlation between obesity and
cardiovascular complications. The relationship necessitates the need for critical interventions for
behavioral and lifestyle changes within the Singaporean population. Singapore undertakes a
collaborative approach that entails the efforts of the ministry of health, the education ministry,
health promotion board as well as non-governmental organizations. Further, Singapore engages
local communities, business people and firms, healthcare professionals and schools towards
promoting healthy choices to reduce incidences of obesity. The obesity health promotion

OBESITY HEALTH PROMOTION CAMPAIGN IN SINGAPORE 3
programs are centrally coordinated in Singapore by the health promotion board that operates to
help Singaporeans to improve their quality of health and hence maintain optimum health.
According to Gupta et al., (2010), the prevalence of obesity in Singapore has been on an
increasing trend. Notably, the prevalence of obesity in Singapore increased to 10.8% by the year
2010. The statistics covered the individuals within the age of 18-69 years. About 40% of
Singaporeans are overweight and stand the risk of being affected by diseases such as diabetes
type 2 and cardiovascular diseases. In Singapore, there is persistence of obesity from childhood
to adulthood. Similarly, there is a high number of males suffering from obesity relative to
females.
Health promotion entails empowering people to take greater control of their health and to
develop positive attitudes towards health improvement. According to the Ottawa Charter for
health promotion, there are five fundamental issues for consideration while developing and
implementing any health promotion like the case of obesity in Singapore. These elements include
development of efficient and effective public policies, creation of supporting environments,
stimulation of community action, and development of personal skills as well as reorientation of
healthcare services to respond to the needs of the society like the Singaporeans (Gupta et al.,
2010).
Obesity is a complex situation that entangles with other social determinants of health in
society. Singapore is a multi-racial society that appreciates equally diverse values and cultures.
Further, socioeconomic factors affect the effective management of obesity especially for the
individuals from low economic background. Hence, effective management of obesity and
running of successful health promotion requires concerted efforts between agencies in any given