Raising Awareness on Benefits of Strength Training for Seniors

1 Ms Mariam Jaafar asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health what steps is the Ministry taking to raise awareness of regular strength training and resistance activity to mitigate the effects of muscle loss and to maintain functional independence among middle-aged and older Singaporeans.

2 Ms Mariam Jaafar asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health what plans does the Ministry have to support safe and guided strength training for middle-aged and older Singaporeans and less active adults who may lack confidence or knowledge to use gym equipment effectively.

The Minister of State for Health (Ms Rahayu Mahzam) (for the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to answer Question Nos 1 and 2 together?

Mr Speaker: Please go ahead.

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: The Health Promotion Board (HPB) and Sport Singapore (SportSG) have undertaken many initiatives to raise awareness of the risk of muscle loss and encourage strength training. This includes jointly issuing the Singapore Physical Activity Guidelines, which recommend that adults engage in muscle-strengthening activities at least twice per week, conducting outreach through multiple channels, exploring organising gym orientation workshops to familiarise seniors with gym equipment and offering various structured physical training programmes in the community, such as Start2Move, a beginner-friendly programme with guided introduction to strength-building exercises in a supportive environment.

A significant development is the expansion of community nodes, such as the Active Ageing Centre (AAC) network. With this expansion, plus the Healthy 365 app, we can better reach out to seniors and engage them in strength training exercises.

Mr Speaker: Ms Mariam Jaafar, you have a supplementary question?

Ms Mariam Jaafar (Sembawang): Let me clarify. I am asking actually not really for senior seniors, who I think are supported by the AACs. But in my house visits, I have gotten an increasing number of people in their 40s and 50s who do not really want to exercise with seniors but who are starting to feel on their holidays that they are getting tired easily and things like that. So, they want to keep functional independence.

I have three supplementary questions. One, can the Minister of State share whether the Ministry has tracked functional outcomes of those who have been involved in the programmes that she has cited for seniors and for some programmes that exist for younger seniors too, for example, ActiveSG's Combat Age-related Loss of Muscle (CALM), and whether there has been a significant benefit in their functional performance since?

My second supplementary question is for middle — did the Minister of State answer Question Nos 1 and 2, or just Question No 1?

Mr Speaker: Both.

Ms Mariam Jaafar: Both. Okay. My second supplementary question is for the middle aged and older group, people in their 40s and 50s who are less active today, but want to start and lack the confidence to start with gym equipment. How does the Ministry ensure that there are programmes that are safely-guided and appropriately-paced through ActiveSG gyms and other community partners? And strength training is expanded under Healthier SG; so, how will the Ministry ensure that there are enough venues as well as enough trained instructors to provide a consistent quality and safe venues?

And I will bring in my Parliamentary Question (PQ) for written answer – which is a request, whether the Ministry will consider working with the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) to get an ActiveSG facility in the Admiralty part of Woodlands where there currently is not any; today, they have to go to Woodlands Swimming Complex which has the only ActiveSG facility in the area, or Sembawang.

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: Mr Speaker, on the first question as to whether we are tracking the functional outcomes, we do for some of the more structured programmes. The data though, I do not have the details with me. If the Member is interested in some of those, she could file a further PQ on that.

On the second question, relating to those who may not be as familiar with the gym equipment, I can imagine the concern and how we want to encourage people to use the gyms more. For the ActiveSG gyms, there are trainers who are onsite, who are very willing to support and encourage those who come and attend to use the equipment. We also have introductory programmes for those who may not be familiar with the gym equipment. And so, I hope these are things that will encourage some of the new users to use the gyms more often.

On the third question, I know that Ms Mariam Jaafar is asking for her constituency and I am sure many others feel the same way. For the North, attention is being given to see how we can look at the needs. I do not want to pre-empt the answer to the written PQ, but we can definitely look into this. At the moment, the Healthy 365 app is quite comprehensive. So, there are already in existence many opportunities in places. Perhaps, we could look at where the gaps are and look at how we can improve on that.

I would encourage those of your residents whom you say are not very familiar and are lethargic, and they do want to seek some guidance, the Healthy 365 app does provide a very good starting point and perhaps, that could be an initial introduction to a change in healthy living of the residents.