10,000 health ambassadors by 2015: HPB

SINGAPORE - The Health Promotion Board (HPB) is hoping to rope in about 10,000 advocates of healthy living by 2015, as part of its new Health Ambassador Network.

The initiative is to encourage Singapore residents to embrace healthy lifestyle habits and integrate these habits in their daily lives.

It was launched at this year's National Healthy Lifestyle Campaign (NHLC), which kicked off today at the Sengkang Community Club by Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean.

Made up of youths, young adults, parents and seniors, these ambassadors will be trained and equipped with knowledge on how to live healthily. Using a peer mentoring approach, they will then share healthy lifestyle tips with their family, friends, peers, neighbours and colleagues.

There are currently 1,000 such ambassadors in Singapore.

New smartphone app

A new smartphone application to help Singaporeans keep track of their health and diet was also launched at NHLC 2011.

The interactive Diet and Activity tracker (iDAT)is the first application in the world that is programmed with a scientifically-based algorithm specially designed for Singaporeans.

Its calorie recommendations take into consideration the body types of Asians as well as the working lifestyle of Singaporeans.

Boosting health literacy

HPB will also look into new ways to boost Singaporeans' knowledge and understanding of health topics and lifestyle behaviour.

The plan is to develop a health literacy measurement tool to establish standards of health literacy in Singapore, to ensure health education materials are easy to understand, and to include health literacy in training curriculum for health and allied professionals.