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National Steps Challenge™ Season Two

Season Two of the Health Promotion Board’s (HPB) National Steps Challenge™, which ran from 1 October 2016 to 30 April 2017, has successfully motivated more than 350,000 adult Singaporeans to lead active lifestyles, more than doubling the number of sign-ups in Season One, which attracted 156,000 participants. 

Data showed that 82% participants^[1] who were sedentary increased the time they spent on physical activity after joining the Challenge, 74% of whom even achieved sufficient physical activity.

As at the end of the sure-win rewards in February 2017, Season Two participants^[2] clocked a daily average of more than 10,000 steps on days they tracked their steps. In addition, almost a third of participants2 achieved 10,000 steps on at least 5 days per week.

Furthermore, 93% of participants2 successfully redeemed the first reward tier in the Challenge and one in six participants of the Challenge completed all six reward tiers. To complete all six tiers, each participant would have to walk 1.2 million steps in total, which is almost 1,000 km. A total of 26,000 participants accomplished this extraordinary achievement.

Another milestone achieved was having participants who were more engaged in tracking their steps over a long period of time, with 1.5 times as many participants continuing to sync their steps at the end of the sure-win rewards in Season Two compared to Season One.

After the sure-win rewards, Season Two participants continued to clock steps to accumulate chances to win prizes in the Grand Draw, including a pair of business class tickets to Wellington, New Zealand on Singapore Airlines, and $50,000 worth of shopping and travel vouchers, among others.

The National Steps Challenge™ Season Three will begin in October this year.

Corporate Challenge

To encourage working adults who are largely sedentary, Season Two of the National Steps Challenge™ included a new Corporate Challenge which called for employees to compete in an inter-company challenge that ran from 14 November 2016 to 28 February 2017.

65,000 working adults across more than 260 organisations in various industries participated in the Corporate Challenge, including organisations in the professional services, consumer business, engineering and manufacturing sector.

To ensure fair competition between bigger and smaller organisations with different staff strength and resources, the Corporate Challenge was split into two categories – organisations with less than 200 employees and those with 200 or more employees.

The top three organisations in each category all achieved at least 15,000 steps per day per participant on average, which is equivalent to walking 12km every day. The Corporate Challenge also spurred participants to walk almost 1km more each day than non-corporate participants.

The Corporate Challenge also included an optional intra-company challenge which allowed departments or teams within the same organisation to compete with one another. Many organisations put in much effort to motivate their employees by giving out their own prizes, or bringing in fitness classes to encourage their employees to move more.

The top three organisations with the highest daily average number of steps per participant won cash prizes of up to $10,000.

Winners

Thematic Challenges

HPB collaborated with other government agencies and commercial partners across different industries including Sentosa, Subway® and 100PLUS to introduce monthly thematic challenges designed to keep participants motivated and spur them to clock steps. These included a wide range of recreational physical activity options for both young and old, such as walking trails, treasure hunts and other mini challenges that can be done with friends and family, or individually.

Almost 50,000 participants joined seven thematic challenges.

Examples of past thematic challenges:

Thematic Challenge #1: Park Trail

Over 19 and 20 November 2016, nearly 3,500 participants took part in the Park Trail, organised in conjunction with NParks’ Parks Festival at the Bishan – Ang Mo Kio Park. Participants walked about 3km around the park to search for various pit-stops and to complete mini challenges along the way, in order to win instant sure-win prizes.

Thematic Challenge #6:  10K Getaway Challenge

From 3 to 16 April 2017, participants had to clock at least 10,000 steps for as many days as possible. Over 37,000 participants clocked at least 3 days of 10,000 steps, of which four of them won Singapore Airlines or SilkAir tickets through a lucky draw.

Quote attributable to Mr Zee Yoong Kang, Chief Executive Officer, Health Promotion Board

“We are pleased with the overwhelming response we received for this season of the Challenge. Across two seasons, we have reached more than half a million participants, including 65,000 working adults across more than 260 organisations who joined the inaugural Corporate Challenge. Some of the organisations have put in much effort to motivate their employees to walk more through organising various activities. We are very encouraged to see more Singaporeans be part of the social movement, pushing boundaries to lead a healthy and active lifestyle with their family, friends and colleagues. We are excited to announce that Season 3 of the National Steps Challenge™ will be launched in October this year, and look forward to getting more Singaporeans to sit less and move more.”

About Health Promotion Board

The Health Promotion Board was established as a statutory board under the Ministry of Health, Singapore, in 2001 with the vision of building “A Nation of Healthy People”. The Health Promotion Board aims to empower the people of Singapore to attain optimal health, increase the quality and years of healthy life and prevent illness, disability and premature death. As the key agency overseeing national health promotion and disease prevention programmes, HPB spearheads health education, promotion and prevention programmes as well as creates a health-supportive environment in Singapore. It develops and organises relevant health promotion and disease prevention programmes, reaching out to the healthy, the at-risk and the unhealthy at all stages of life – children, youths, adults and older Singapore residents. Its health promotion programmes include nutrition, mental health, physical activity, smoking control and communicable disease education. HPB also promotes healthy ageing, integrated health screening, and chronic disease education and management.

More information can be found at www.hpb.gov.sg.