Pull ups, IPPT and the culture of exercise in Singapore

Hello everyone. I have read a really good article here about the death of pull ups in Singapore - please allow me to offer my thoughts on the issue. So the bane of many male Singaporeans has finally been eradicated, I can hear the roar of celebration from Singaporeans already. Frankly, I am in two minds about this - there are two sides to this argument. Now as someone who has already given up his pink IC years ago, this really doesn't affect me in the slightest. Although just for the record, as a former national champion gymnast, yes I can do pull ups easily - I think they're fun, I started doing them in primary school and never found them challenging. I refer you to my latest youtube video for a statement of my physical fitness as a video speaks a thousand words - so here we go, enjoy the video!

Here in the UK where I live, we do have a serious obesity problem. Many adults are overweight and this is because they simply do not take the time to exercise - we have a very sedentary lifestyle where people spend all day in the office sitting in a chair and then go home to sit down in from of their laptops or TV. The situation is exacerbated by the British drinking culture where people consume large amounts of calorie-laden alcoholic drinks in social situations. The government (and ultimately, the tax-payer) picks up the bill for this mess at the end of the day when all these overweight people end up at the hospital with a range of serious medical problems brought on by their obesity. Now if only there was something to make these fat British people do some exercise, if only there was something to compel them to consider the level of their physical fitness.

And that's why I think that in principle, making NS reservists do IPPT is a very good idea, because at least you are giving these adult men a reason to keep fit. There are cash incentives for those who do well and there is remedial training for those who fail. Well, that's a good idea, at least in principle. In reality, Singapore still has an obesity problem for much the same reason as the UK - those men who are overweight simply have to bite the bullet and go for remedial IPPT training which rarely achieve the aim of making them pass their IPPT for a simple reason: it is not enough. If you really want an overweight man in his 30s or 40s to pass his IPPT, you need to take a wider approach to the issue of health & fitness by radically changing their diet and lifestyle, rather than just making them do some exercise.

Singapore does face a growing obesity problem.

Now you have got to feel sorry for the SAF at this stage - their intentions are noble at the end of the day, they are not deliberately trying to punish fat or unfit people, but rather they just want their men to remain reasonably fit in their civilian life. As someone who is health conscious, I believe that is something we all should do anyway - you could argue that perhaps there's a notion of a nanny state there, but fat and unfit people have everything to gain and nothing to lose by making some adjustments to their lifestyle in order to lose some weight and become more physically fit.

This is when I am going to hear the excuses: "I'm just born fat, it doesn't matter what I do I have always been big." Or there's also this one, "I work such long hours, where got time to do exercise? That's a luxury for rich people who have hours of spare time to spend in the gym or doing sports. I barely get enough sleep." You get the idea - there are loads of excuses that fat people will give you to explain their body size. But ultimately, there's a big difference between explaining why you are fight and justifying your obesity: truth be told, most fat people would rather not be overweight if there was a way for them to lose weight. Remember the 5 Ds of obesity: disfigurement, discomfort, disability, disease and death. Now I don't need to elaborate on these, they are self-explanatory. You can't argue with medical science.

Is it wrong to justify and condone obesity?

But at the end of the day, regardless of the SAF's noble intentions, this IPPT requirement is simply not dealing with the issue of adult obesity amongst male Singaporeans. So what do you do in this case? On one hand, a leaking bucket is better than no bucket at all when you are trying to put out a fire. On the other hand, is the IPPT system so ineffective that it needs to be scrapped and replaced with something else altogether more radical? There is no simple answer.

To give you some insight about this issue, allow me to share my personal battle with my weight issues. I am just normal now - I'm not thin, I'm not fat, I'm just plain average. I'm 38, I'm 175 cm tall and I weigh 70 kgs. But it was not always like that, when I was a teenager, I was very thin and weighed between 55 to 60 kgs. I remained that thin until I graduated and stopped training 6 days a week. Since then, my weight then yoyo-ed between 70 kgs and 90 kgs, when I went through particularly high stress periods at work, I would pile weight on - when I had a more relaxed time, I would naturally lose the weight. I tend to eat more when I am stressed, I also have less time for exercise when I am very busy at work. Since the beginning of this year, I increased the number of hours I trained a week and not only did I lose even more weight, I discovered a whole new level of physical ability that I never dreamt I could possibly have in my late 30s. So whilst I am now quite happy with the fact that I am now reasonably fit at 70 kgs, it is also something I do not take for granted as I have been 90 kgs before. Believe you me, I hated what I saw in the mirror when I was fat.

That's me on a beach in Greece last week - not fat, not thin.

In replacing pull ups with push ups, you are still not dealing with the root causes of obesity in Singapore. This is a fairly meaningless gesture - you're merely moving the goalposts so some men will find it easier to pass the IPPT, you're not improving the overall level of fitness amongst Singaporean men. Imagine if a school applied the same solution when faced with an overwhelming number of students failing maths, "oh I know what we'll do, we'll simply lower the pass mark, so that everyone will find it easier to pass and we'll give all the students much better grades. Problem solved!" Really? Your students still can't do maths, even if you give them a better grade on paper. Who are you trying to kid? Whether you are getting the men to do pull ups or push ups, it still doesn't fundamentally change the situation you have with obesity and the rather poor standard of fitness amongst the men.

If you really want to tackle the problem of adult obesity in Singapore, then you need concrete steps to tackle the root of the problem: the long work hours and the unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle. How about introducing a compulsory element of regular (daily or at least 3 times a week) exercise periods (like a PE class) for these adults who would otherwise spend the vast majority of their working hours sitting on a chair in an office during their working week? How about offering companies (gyms, private sports clubs, sports facilities etc) a government subsidy if they have programmes specifically targeting adults rather than children? What about more effective education campaigns to get Singaporeans to make healthier choices when it comes to their diets? There are so many things that you can do to attack the growing problem of adult obesity in Singapore but you need to deal with the root causes, rather than just punish the fat people.

Limpeh at ECP last year.

The excuse given for this change is that the SAF is changing and evolving with time and in their own words, "we have a 3G army today" (third generation). Cynics would point out to many elements of NS which are anything but 3G and this has been clearly outlined in Ian Tan's article here. My personal gripe about NS is the way it seems to focus so much on jungle warfare when there's so little jungle left in Singapore - unless Singapore is planning an invasion of Johor, I really don't see the point in all this jungle-centric training. So much more needs to be done in terms of urban warfare, such as dealing with a situation whereby a bomb hits a HDB block and dealing with the consequences of that.  Now that would be far more practical from a defence point of view than all these games they play in the jungle.

Furthermore, if you are going to be a truly 3G army which is all about brain power rather than muscle power, then there needs to be a fundamental rethink about the age of enlistment. Right now, conscripts are mostly starting their national service at around the age of 18, at their physical peak but they have yet to complete their further education and acquire any professional skills. Even when reservists do go on to become highly skilled professionals in their respective fields, this is conveniently ignored by the SAF who default to their assigned vocation during NS. The fact is, Singaporean men are extremely highly educated thanks to your education system yet the SAF couldn't be less interested in their brains. How ironic. That is a really big mistake in my opinion - think of what you could achieve if you do tap into this massive pool of brain power. Well if you want to be a 3G army, then this approach has got to fundamentally change and we need changes that will be a lot more meaningful than replacing pull-ups with push-ups.

Isn't it time for the SAF to evolve and keep up with the times?

So that's it from me on this issue of pull ups and fitness. What are your views on the issue? Do you think Singaporean men should be pushed harder physically at the IPPT? Why are so many Singaporeans overweight? How can we best deal with the root causes of obesity in Singapore Please do leave me a comment below, many thanks for reading.