Survey: Internet addiction affects health

January 10, 2014

This addiction trend will continue to be fuelled by children growing up with the Internet as an integral part of their lives

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians feel less healthy compared with five years ago and Internet addiction is a major culprit to unhealthy lifestyles, according to global insurer AIA Group Ltd in its latest Healthy Living Index Survey.

“Some 67% of adults in Malaysia feel their health is not as good as it was five years ago, with 62% under the age of 30 agreeing with this sentiment.

The survey shows that Malaysian adults also scored lower than the regional average (6.6 versus 7 out of 10) in terms of their satisfaction with their health status,” said AIA Bhd in a statement yesterday.

Malaysia scores 61 out a possible 100 points in the landmark survey of over 10,000 adults in 15 Asia-Pacific markets, which also uncovers new modern-day threats to healthy living such as Internet addiction and concerns about being overweight.

The survey said 73% of adults interviewed agreed that their online activities and social networking are becoming addictive, ranking Malaysia among the highest percentage in the region, and 81% of respondents said that spending time online is a barrier to them getting enough exercise and sleep while also affecting their posture.

“This addiction trend will continue to be fuelled by children growing up with the Internet as an integral part of their lives,” said AIA.

Malaysians do not exercise regularly with 32% of adults admitting so and all these unhealthy habits are aggravated by a preference for sedentary means of stress relief such as watching TV and/movies (67%), playing computer or mobile games (50%) and spending time online (48%), said the survey.

Concern about obesity is one indicator of the impact of poor health habits – 64% of Malaysian adults say they want to lose weight, above the regional average of 53%.

Some 93% agree that obesity among younger people is a worrying trend, suggesting that the problem is likely to grow as it has been reported that more than 40% of Malaysians are obese with about 15% of the population diabetic, presenting a potential health timebomb in the future.



The survey showed Malaysians are concerned about cancer (50%), heart disease (45%) and being overweight (25%) with the former two being above regional averages.

Despite these concerns, only 50% of adults had medical check-ups in the past 12 months and 89% feel that employers should help employees live a healthy lifestyle by providing free health checks, not subjecting employees to undue stress and ensuring workloads are not excessive.

In Budget 2014, healthcare spending increased by 14.5% year-on-year to RM264.2 billion or 8.4% of the total budget planned.
This content is provided by FMT content provider The Malaysian Reserve