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The second stage of the household survey for the Healthy Exercise for All Campaign - Physical Fitness Test for the Community 2010-11 will be launched next Friday (August 26). About 10,000 households are being randomly selected from the 18 districts throughout Hong Kong, with household members between the ages of 20 and 69 being invited to participate.
The first stage of the test, covering groups of adults (aged 20 to 59) and seniors (aged 60 to 69), was conducted between April and June this year. A thousand households were selected randomly from five districts, namely, Eastern, Kwun Tong, Sha Tin, Yuen Long and Kwai Tsing, to complete questionnaires and take physical fitness tests, so as to develop the foundation for launching the second stage.
"Staff of the consultancy firm undertaking the questionnaire survey will visit the selected households from August 26 onwards. The questionnaire survey will last for 15 to 20 minutes," a spokesman for the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) said.
"After completing the questionnaire, the interviewees will be invited to take the physical fitness test at one of the designated LCSD venues, which will be open for the test during different time slots. The test will last for about 45 minutes. Participants will be presented with souvenirs upon completion of the test."
The spokesman called on those being selected to give their full support to the test. The households selected for the test will be notified by letter starting from August 19.
"It is a unique test and different from other health tests commonly available and is not easily found in the market. The test will be conducted by physical fitness professionals, who will brief participants on their test results on-site and recommend improvement measures for achieving physical fitness."
The Healthy Exercise for All Campaign - Physical Fitness Test for the Community 2010-11 was officially launched in April this year. It is aimed at building a database on the physical fitness of Hong Kong people, and establishing the relationship between physical exercise patterns and physical fitness. Priority areas will then be identified for improvement to enhance Hong Kong people's overall physical condition as well as to give the individual participants a general understanding of their own physical fitness condition.
The test will cover different age groups. Schools are being selected by random sampling and participants under the age groups of infants (aged 3 to 6), children (aged 7 to 12) and adolescents (aged 13 to 19) are being drawn to complete questionnaires and conduct tests. Tests for the children and infants groups were completed in June and July this year respectively, while those for the adolescents group will be held from September to November.
The data collection of the test is expected to be completed by the end of this year. After analysing the data collected, a report on the results of the test will be announced in middle of next year.
The first Physical Fitness Test for the Community was conducted in 2005-06 under the guidance of the Community Sports Committee (CSC). The second test launched in 2010-11 is to take forward the CSC's recommendation of conducting a territory-wide physical fitness test every five years and tie in with the National Physical Fitness Surveillance Project implemented on the Mainland.
For details of the Healthy Exercise for All Campaign - Physical Fitness Test for the Community 2010-11, please call 2601 8809 or visit its dedicated webpage at www.lcsd.gov.hk/healthy .
Ends/Thursday, August 18, 2011
Issued at HKT 17:51
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