Macau’s 5th Residents Physical Fitness Monitoring & Assessment campaign was launched yesterday, with 9,990 valid samples being collected from four age groups: kids, teenagers, adults-at-work and the elderly – and Sports Bureau (ID) President Luís Gomes said that by collecting physical fitness data from local residents aged between three and 79 through “scientific sampling”, the campaign would help the government better formulate its policies or implement measures in the fields of sport, education, healthcare, and elderly care.
Since 2005, the Sports Bureau, in conjunction with the Health Bureau (SSM), the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ), the Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) and the Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPU), has jointly launched the four-month campaign every five years with the aim of improving the understanding of the changes in local residents’ physical activity behaviour, and providing reference for designing relevant policies specifically in the fields of sport, healthcare and education.
With the technical support from the China Institute of Sport Science (CISS) of the General Administration of Sport of China, “a raft of new important indicators has been added this year, including a 15-metre obstacle course for kids, grip strength measurements, scoliosis* screening for teenagers, blood glucose measurement for adults, and sarcopenia** assessments for senior citizens, among others,” Cheong said.
Yesterday’s ceremony was held at the Macau Olympic Sports Centre Stadium, with the attendance by Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Wallis O Lam, CISS Director Cao Jingwei, and Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the MSAR Publicity and Culture Department Deputy Director Bai Bing, as well as senior officials from the four participating bureaus.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the ceremony, Gomes said that the current campaign covers 16 local primary and secondary schools, five tertiary education institutions and 29 organisations participating in the testing of different age groups, with the entire sampling having been divided into districts, strata and age, “first according to the proportion ratio and district distribution, and then according to the ratio of males to females and age groups”, underlining that the total of 25 years’ worth of data “is collected under the unified standards”.
Lasting until April, according to Gomes, the findings from the campaign may only be able to be released in the fourth quarter of next year or the first quarter of 2027.
* Scoliosis is a medical condition characterised by an abnormal lateral curvature of the spine.
** Sarcopenia is a condition characterised by the progressive loss of muscle mass, strength, and function, typically associated with ageing.
School children have their physical fitness tested at the Olympic Sports Centre Stadium yesterday. – Photos: Yuki Lei
Sports Bureau (ID) President Luís Gomes delivers a speech during yesterday’s launching ceremony of the 2025 Macau Residents Physical Fitness Monitoring & Assessment.
