Spare Us The Blushes Sport As Business And Way Of Life

Buitenhuis got himself into this spot of a bother about a week or so ago when he applied to renew his work permit in his host country. Despite protestations from Buitenhuis’s wife that her husband has worked down his weight from 160 kg when they arrived six years ago to the present 130 kg, New Zealand’s immigration service is not impressed.

They charge that Buitenhuis no longer … “had an acceptable standard of health” and that his obesity is a strain on New Zealand’s health services. Says Immigration New Zealand…”it is important that all migrants have an acceptable standard of health to minimise costs and demands on New Zealand’s health services.”

So clearly then, there is a direct link between what and how much we eat and the swelling health budget of our country as well. Also, it means that if we make sport and physical exercise part of our regular routine, we stand to reduce obesity and, therefore, self-induced ailments which are consequences of our poor nutrition and sedentary lives. This is clearly a win-win outcome which could save on our medical expenses and enhance our chances of employment in New Zealand too!

The culture to adopt sport and physical exercise as a way of life must be nurtured right from home and further honed at school and beyond. It is therefore to be regretted that, in recent years, many of our schools have not invested in this part of education of pupils. For it is school sport, which in so many instances is the foundation for so many successful professional careers in later life.

It is countries – and sportsmen and women – who make this early investment who reap rich benefits from sport not only as a way of life but also as a profession. This realisation is only coming through too slowly in our country with the range of sport disciplines children are exposed to, at early age, still being very narrow.

Yet we have sport such as cricket and boxing, relatively new at competitive level, which have made enormous progress in recent years. It is choice, commitment, depth and professionalism which are all lacking in so many of our sport codes.

And it is particularly football, the sport with the largest public support which exhibits all these ills. The recent performance of the senior national team gave the belief that we were on the road the fixing the jinx of being underachievers. But our campaign in the recent edition of COSAFA and last weekend’s thrashing in Maputo, Mozambique, again confirmed that we have not yet mastered the basics of consistent professional delivery and that we rely more on fluke than sportsmanship and artistry.

For all our best wishes and denials, the management of the game still remains unprofessional. This is in sharp contrast to most of our sport codes whose results and achievements speak for themselves. Last week in France, Johannes Nambala set a new championship record winning the 400 metres in T13, earning gold in the process. He and his compatriots collected seven medals overall from the games.

Only last month, two lasses broke through to the top 10 in International Tennis Federation rankings for juniors in tennis. In hockey, rugby, equestrian sports, fist ball, gymnastics,etc Namibian sportsmen and women participate with great success, often being the only participants from Africa at international competitions.

We need to build on this foundation by encouraging more and more young people to participate in the full range of the sport menu. With consistent and enhanced support from our ministry of sport, many Namibia youth may just consider sport as a worthwhile and profitable pursuit.

This will be for personal good and glory but it will also be the collective pride of our country. It will increase our scores in global ‘happiness rankings’ and by the same token reduce our state of misery? But over and above this, the active participation in sport and physical exercise translates to healthier citizens who are a lesser drain on the country’s creaking health system.

For those with intentions of migrating to New Zealand, it will also spare them Buitenhuis’s blushes. What is more, most physical activity, which enhances one’s health, is for free. You need not necessarily join old chap Andimba Toivo ya Toivo on his daily workouts at Virgin . . . But his exemplary exercise routine is worth emulating. He continues to lead and be an example as he has been for most of his adult life.

For the young who often are frustrated by not being successful at Grade 12, believing that this leaves them with no options, a career in sport may in fact work out to be an excellent way to combine work with pleasure – and be healthy.