Practise healthy lifestyle daily — Najib
PEKAN: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak calls for the people in the country to make healthy lifestyle a daily practice and to take good care of their health.
He said such a recreational practice should not be done only during a certain time such as when participating in a running event but must be done continuously because a healthy lifestyle should be in harmony with each individual’s self.
“No matter how much we need to work, exercise, do physical activities, watch our diet, make sure to have enough rest and don’t eat too much fatty food.
“If we smoke, stop doing it and this is all part of the essence of a healthy lifestyle concept even though I see someone smiling meaningfully when I talk about quitting smoking,” he said.
Najib was speaking at the UDA Pekan Bridge Run 2017 prize presentation at Dataran Pekan yesterday, which was also attended by UDA group chairman Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Shafei Abdullah.
He said the UDA Pekan Bridge Run was one of the examples of healthy lifestyle practices being adopted by the corprorate sector, namely Uda Holdings Berhad, which has started the annual event since last year.
Najib, who is also Pekan Member of Parliament, described the event as ‘twopronged’ as it also promoted Pekan as one of the tourist attractions in Pahang.
“We have many attractions in Pekan that can be developed as an added value product in the field of tourism. I hope through this event, we can enhance public awareness of Pekan.
“They can know where the location of Pekan is, interesting things they can do here, and enjoy themselves as tourists here,” he said.
The Prime Minister also expressed his pride in the achievement of UDA which managed to attract 4,500 participants this year from only 1,000 last year.
He said this proved the event was increasingly popular among those interested in running sports, and this was evident with the participation of foreign participants from Kenya, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Germany this year.
“I wish to welcome all international participants to Pekan and I wish all of you will return next year,” he said.
Najib said the run complemented the Visit Pahang Year 2017 programme and he was pleased with the state government’s achievement in increasing the number of tourist arrivals to 4.9 per cent from January to March compared to the same period last year.
“As MP, I am very happy with events such as this because we must fill the calendar in Pekan with various events so that our lives are more complete,” he said and hoped UDA would continue the event in future with more attractive prizes to attract more participants.
He also commended the initiative of UDA to employ 90 per cent Pekan locals in its four-star hotel in the district besides developing a 202-hectare land in front of Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) that would help to add value to the district in future. - Bernama