The event proved to be very popular with 324 registered participants ranging in ages from 11 months to 70 years old who performed under clear skies after a night of heavy rain.
The annual event serves not only to raise awareness about tobacco issues, but also promotes healthy lifestyle through recreational exercise and an active lifestyle.Healthy food choices in mind, the organizers offered a wide array of fresh fruits while providing fresh water, served only in paper cups, was the drink of the day.
Base from the registration forms that yielded information regarding age, gender, ethnicity and daily tobacco use, There were 53% male and 47% female runners/walkers who participated and a slight increase in the number of Palauan participants was evident this year from 30% in 2009 to 32.5% in 2010.There was also a large increase in the number of Japanese and Bangladeshi participating.Overall daily smoking status rates among participants decreased from 7.3% to 5.2%, but more than doubled in the Palauan group (from 3% to 7%). The overall daily rate for chewing betelnut with tobacco was 9%.Within the Palauan group, 23% indicated they chew betelnut with tobacco on a daily basis, a slight decrease from 26% last year.
This year’s global theme was on gender and tobacco with an emphasis on marketing to women.In Palau, the theme focused on the harm which tobacco marketing does to everyone regardless of gender while recognizing that tobacco companies are spending heavily on alluring marketing campaigns that target women.For the walk/run participants, twice as many males indicated they are daily smokers than females while only slightly more males indicated daily chewing with tobacco than females.
The organizers would like to thank the community for their support and participation of this annual event and look forward to next year.
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