Gulf News

Let’s all take the Dubai Fitness Challenge

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It’s time to make the best investment ever, the kind that will pay amazing dividends for the rest of your life. The third edition of the monthlong Dubai Fitness Challenge (DFC) is here to remind you, again, of the most important asset in life; your health. As it happens, this particular asset portfolio is, happily, also one of the easiest to build. All you need is awareness and impetus, and the DFC offers you both in abundance.

Thanks to the sheer energy of intent unleashed by the Challenge, health and fitness, for the next 29 days, will be everyday newsmakers and that’s an important aim because health anyway ought to be a way of life for all of us.

Second, the DFC is making sure that fitness options are within access of everyone. Two fitness villages at prominent, populous venues, 10 community-based fitness hubs, over 40 different events and more than 5,000 classes and activities across the city ensure there is no event or action that is too far away for residents.

Third, this transforma­tional vision will go a long way in motivating the less active bodies — and that’s an important goal for Dubai to help it tackle the prevalence of lifestyle diseases. Take the case of diabetes: nearly 31 per cent of expatriate­s are either diabetic or pre-diabetic. Statistics for cardiovasc­ular diseases, obesity and hypertensi­on are of equal concern and bringing down the numbers is a core commitment in UAE’s National Health Agenda 2021.

The Dubai Fitness Challenge finds perfect synergy with the emirate’s overall, and continual, endeavour to promote health as an everyday priority for its residents. Everywhere you look, the city is shaped by, and in turn has shaped, the innumerabl­e possibilit­ies of what residents and visitors can do to stay fit.

From the nature-gifted opportunit­ies for fitness on its stunning beaches and waters, to the world-class facilities of its jogging, walking and cycling tracks, beautiful parks, walking tours in marinas and malls, and the thousands of varieties of health pursuits in its gyms and health clubs, Dubai’s range of incentives for people to stay in the pink of health is staggering.

The DFC is one more great opportunit­y to remind ourselves of how easy, fun and exciting is the path to healthful living. All we have to do, as the DFC says, is be In It Together.

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