Announcing this at the Healthy Lifestyle Carnival held at PSRC on August 19, Commissioner Tang King-shing said adoption of the PHM followed a review of the success and effectiveness of the Annual Fitness Test (AFT) and various health and fitness programmes introduced over the years.

He recalled that the AFT was introduced in 1985 as a measure to raise officers' awareness of maintaining their physical fitness. In addition, the concept of healthy lifestyle was promulgated in 1996 and the "One-Officer-One-Sport" Campaign was rolled out in April 2006 as a Force-wide measure to motivate Force members to regularly take up exercises and participate in healthy lifestyle activities.

Health management introduced

Mr Tang pointed out that the PHM, besides embodying the AFT's focus on maintenance of physical fitness, had incorporated the important element of health management. Unlike the AFT, which used to target officers aged below 50, the PHM now covers all Force members, including civilian staff.

Tripartite partnership

CP also pointed out that the PHM placed emphasis on a partnership among the Force management, Force members and police sports and arts clubs. For its part, the Force management would continue to provide resources, facilities, training and information. On the other hand, the sports and arts clubs would play supplementary and supporting roles by organising and promoting sporting, arts and healthy lifestyle activities for Force members and their families, while officers would discharge the responsibility of enhancing their physical fitness to a standard commensurate with the requirements of their duties.

Furthermore, supervisory officers at different levels would monitor the physical fitness of their subordinates so as to further realise the caring culture within the Force.

In line with introduction of the health management concept, Mr Tang continued, the Force management would provide comprehensive information on health knowledge, including balanced diet, health guides and health check-up, through an electronic database on Police Intranet, OffBeat and other channels. At the same time, the Force management would also provide venues, facilities, guidelines and other necessary assistance for Force members to carry out voluntary self-assessment of their physical fitness.

"Today, the Healthy Lifestyle Carnival bears witness to realisation of the partnership advocated by the PHM. I hope the common mission of maintaining physical fitness and health would be elevated to a higher level. For this objective, I urge Force members to play their roles so that every member would put the new concepts of the 'Integrated Approach to Physical Fitness and Health Management' into practice by giving due regard to their physical fitness and health," Mr Tang concluded.

Natural progression

Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner (Personnel) Xavier Tang Kam-moon has talked to OffBeat about the other aspects of the PHM.

ACP (P) described the PHM as a "natural progression" of the AFT, healthy lifestyle programme and the current "One-Officer-One-Sport" Campaign.

"The PHM takes these initiatives to a new level and dimension, and will ensure the promotion and sustainability of awareness of health and physical fitness among Force members," he noted.

The AFT's role will be subsumed under the PHM and thus AFT will no longer be held, but Mr Xavier Tang stressed that this would not result in a drop in the standard of officers' physical fitness. On the contrary, the new approach would help heighten their awareness and interest.

To maintain officers' physical fitness in top form, he said the Police College would continue to run Operational Fitness Course for officers referred by their Formation Commanders. On top of this, courses on fitness training and use of fitness training equipment would be conducted at PHQ, POC and PSRC, and the Police Sports Council and Police Arts Council would explore ways to promote wider participation by Force members in sporting, arts and healthy lifestyle activities.

Regular exercising becomes a habit

ACP (P) cited the following figures to show that regular exercising has already been well established as a habit among many Force members:

- The 65 Fitness Training Rooms in the Force are always fully utilised.

- There are 32 Police Sports Clubs and 15 Police Arts Clubs with 10,229 members and 10,361 members respectively.

- A total of 2,263 runners took part in Dowman Race earlier this year.

- A record number of 530 Force members joined the Torch Run this year out of 1,500 participants from all disciplined services, and

- A total of 163 Police officers participated in this year's World Police and Fire Games, winning a record number of 109 medals.

ACP (P) Xavier Tang, Senior Superintendent (Catering, Clubs & Sports Group) Cheng See-hing (centre) and Superintendent (CCS) Law Cheuk-hung discuss the action plan for PHM

(Continued on Photo Features)