The Middle East rises up to GE Healthcare’s ‘Get Fit’ social media challenge

GE Healthcare’s ‘Get Fit’ social media competition on Twitter, aimed at raising public awareness on cancer prevention and healthy living, recorded strong response from the Middle East region with a  large number of residents in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the UAE endorsing healthy lifestyle practices and their commitment to ‘Get Fit.’ 

Globally, the Middle East and Africa regions led the campaign, which was held over a two-month period encouraging people to tweet about their own health and fitness activities that have been shown to reduce the likelihood of developing cancer. More than 700 participants from 55 countries took part in the campaign generating about 5,500 Get Fit tweets. 

GE Healthcare had committed a US$20,000 donation to the Red Crescent or Red Cross Society of a single country in the winning region, which was determined through an online poll at the end of the contest. Kenya garnered the most votes, and the Kenya Red Cross Society will receive the donation. 

Aziz Koleilat, General Manager at GE Healthcare for the Middle East region, said: “The ‘Get Fit’ campaign was a perfect fit to our healthymagination initiative, which focuses on strengthening access to quality healthcare at lower costs across the region. It also underlined our earlier model of healthcare, where the emphasis is on prevention and early diagnosis.” 

He added: “The strong response from the Middle East highlights the growing importance that the public places on good healthcare practices, which is important in meeting the dual challenge faced by the region – of growing healthcare bills led and a rising incidence of lifestyle diseases.” 

Sebastien Duchamp, Global PR Director at GE Healthcare, said: “With ‘Get Fit’, GE Healthcare has kicked off a long-term public awareness campaign that strives to educate people about cancer prevention and raise general awareness that lifestyle choices do impact one’s likelihood of developing certain cancers. We’re very pleased with the level of engagement this competition generated in so many countries, it clearly demonstrates the power of digital and social media to engage populations around the world combined with a great cause.” 

Nearly 30 percent of all cancer deaths can be prevented, according to the World Health Organization. Each year, 12.7 million people discover they have cancer and 7.6 million people die from the disease.  Evidence shows that 30–40 per cent of all cancer deaths can be prevented, and one-third can be cured through early diagnosis and treatment. Research also has found that a healthy diet and regular exercise can help reduce the risk of cancer. 

The Get Fit competition was a novel approach, using social media linked to an interactive map to display the progression of the competition in real time. By promoting the competition through GE Healthcare’s online newsroom and the support of GE employees in countries around the world, participation and interest was truly global and a high level of activity was sustained throughout the two months.