OPENING REMARKS BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH, AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE ON GROW WELL SG, 21 JANUARY 2025

Grow Well SG to Shape Lifestyle Habits of the Young 

1.             Thank you for coming to Temasek Primary School. As you know, in recent years, population health has been a key focus of the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) health policies. We launched two major national initiatives – one was Healthier SG, the other was Age Well SG.  

2.             Today, we are launching another new initiative for population health, called Grow Well SG. It is to enhance preventive care and inculcate healthier lifestyles among our young.  

3.             There is now very good evidence, both internationally and locally, that shows that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life is very important. This is the time where a child inculcates good life habits which will have a profound impact on them as they grow up. There are two local research studies which are significant longitudinal surveys – one by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) and one by MOH. You may be familiar with GUSTO (Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes), the MOH study that has been going on for 14 years. There is very good evidence to show that your life habits from young affect your growing up, your cognitive development, and your executive functions.  

SEED the Habits 

4.             In particular, MOH would like to focus on four habits that are particularly important. I call them the SEED habits. The Grow Well SG logo has a seed with a leaf growing. ‘S’ is for sleep, ‘E’ is for eat, the second ‘E’ is for exercise and ‘D’ is for device usage. The SEED habits are particularly important to children. 

5.             Our young need enough sleep. Just now, we visited some kids. Many of them sleep nine to 10 hours every night, which is very good. I think children, young children especially, need good sleep for proper development. All of us can also certainly cut down on salt, sugar and fat. Not to abstain totally, but moderation is always good. And certainly, almost all of us can certainly do more sports.  

6.             Our particular concern is on the use of devices. Devices are relatively new, and this is something that parents, students, teachers and schools are all coping with. Last year, following the issuance of the warning by the US Surgeon General, I also posted MOH’s view on the matter. I shared about the impact of screen time on child development and that we need more decisive and effective measures to shape the habit of device usage for our young. 

7.             Device usage takes away time from our children in terms of physical activity, bonding with their loved ones as well as friends, and social interactions. Excessive and improper usage can also shape their socio-emotional wellbeing. There is a lot of research literature that points in that direction.  

8.             It is therefore timely to introduce Grow Well SG, to help families and children develop healthier habits from young. As a start, we are focusing on children 0 to 12 years old. 

9.             I know many will be interested to know what we are doing about teenagers. In recent years, many of the initiatives that we have rolled out, some by MOH, some inter-agency, especially those with regard to mental wellbeing, tend to be focused on teenagers. So certainly, this is an age group that we are also very concerned about. 

10.          Grow Well SG, just like Healthier SG and Age Well SG, are not single policies. They are policy platforms, and we start somewhere, and evolve it over time. For Grow Well SG, we start off by focusing on 0 to 12 years old. Over time it will certainly evolve, and we do want Grow Well SG at some point to also extend to teenagers.   

11.          There are many details that are in our press release. Today, let me just highlight two of the key initiatives that I feel are more needle-moving. These are stronger and more decisive medical advisory on purposeful screen use, and second, working with schools to develop Health Plans for all our young primary school students.  

Proper and Purposeful Screen Use 

12.          Let me start with the first one, which is screen use. We are taking steps to encourage healthy screen use in children, with support from preschools, schools, healthcare institutions, as well as the community. 

13.          MOH has therefore updated our Guidance on Screen Use in Children aged 0 to 12 years old. We first issued this guidance in March 2023, when we started to see a signal and correlation between screen use and cognitive development and executive functions of young kids. Now, knowing more, we are strengthening the medical advisory. The following are the key changes to the advisory. 

14.          One, we are advising parents that children below 18 months old should have zero screen time. Zero means no handphones, tablets, including TVs, and video games. This is stronger than the previous guidance. As I mentioned, this includes even background screen use such as TV, which some families tend to switch on while having meals and as the kid goes about their routines, the screen is on in the background. Cut that out for kids who are zero to 18 months old.  

15.          For children who are 18 months to 6 years old, we advise that screen use outside of school – in school, sometimes there is some screen use – should be capped, up to one hour at most. This advice pertained to those aged 18 to 36 months in the previous guidance. We are making a stronger recommendation now to parents and caregivers to disallow screen use while eating and before bedtime. So, just to repeat, in the previous guidance, for 18 to 36 months, outside of school, maximum of one hour. Now it is 18 months to 6 years old, outside of school, maximum of one hour. While eating and before bedtime, no screen use. We strongly recommend this. 

16.          For children 7 to 12 years old, the limit is two hours outside of school, unless it is related to schoolwork. Previously, no time limit was stated for this age group. Now, we are putting an advisory for a maximum of two hours. We are also strongly advising parents not to give children devices with unlimited internet access, or to access social media at this age. After all, for most social media platforms, the age limit is 13 years old. 

17.          This advice will be given by our healthcare professionals in our clinics and hospitals, especially to young parents, because after they give birth, they will bring their infants and children for developmental screening and vaccinations. During those touchpoints, our nurses and doctors will provide this advice to parents and caregivers. 

18.          Minister of State (MOS) Sun Xueling as well as MOS Gan Siow Huang will share more about the guidance and how it will translate into additional practices on screen use in preschools as well as primary schools.  

19.          Singaporeans heed the advice of doctors very seriously, and schools are also a very important part of a child’s life. I believe if parents work together with us, these measures, even though not mandated by law, will over time, go a long way to shape the habits of our young.  

Health Plan for Every Child 

20.          Second, we will provide a Health Plan for every child. HPB and our schools, in partnership with parents, will engage every child from Primary 1 to Primary 3 to develop a Health Plan through the annual School Health Screening programme. It so happens that this is school health screening season in Temasek Primary School, which is why we are here. Our team of nurses from HPB is here, about eight or 10 of them. They will see every child. For those who are in Primary 1 to Primary 3, this will be the first time they will develop a Health Plan. Once the Health Plan is developed, they get a badge to go back and show their parents. 

21.          The Health Plan will provide a personalised lifestyle prescription, covering part or all of the SEED habits which I mentioned earlier. It will also include their school health screening results, vaccination reports, as well as any referrals to healthcare professionals, if we deem it necessary.  

22.          It is a huge effort to go through the entire population of Primary 1 to Primary 3 students and we will do it over the year. How do we do this? It starts with parents receiving a Lifestyle Questionnaire from HPB via the school. We strongly encourage parents to complete the questionnaire to help them reflect on their child’s current lifestyle habits at home.  

23.          Then, during the annual School Health Screening, HPB personnel – most of whom are nurses – will meet every child at school to perform this basic health screening according to the age requirements we saw just now, which typically include height, weight and vision checks. A minority, if they have very high BMI, may have to do blood tests to test their cholesterol levels, for example.  

24.          With the screening data, plus the information provided by parents and discussions with the child, a personalised Health Plan will be provided to the child. It is kept very simple, revolving around the SEED habits. It will be pictorial, so that the kid can understand, and when they bring it home, their parents can also immediately intuitively understand.   

25.          The children will receive a physical copy of their Health Plan which they can bring home, and parents can access a softcopy on HealthHub.  

26.          We will also provide additional resources to help children start and sustain their behavioural changes. As a start, children will receive a take-home student starter kit to kick-start their health challenges. Parents can access health resources and parenting tips on HPB’s Parent Hub website and sign up for healthy lifestyle programmes via the Healthy 365 app.  

27.          In addition, schools will be provided with teachers’ toolkits, containing practical classroom activities to reinforce healthy behaviour among students. 

28.          We will study the rollout of this plan. It is the first time we are doing something of this scale in schools. We will monitor how effective it is. As I mentioned, Grow Well SG is a policy platform, and we do want to evolve and improve it with time.  

Closing 

29.          Let me close by saying this. We know parents in Singapore, and I am a parent too, all want the best for our child. 

30.          But we don’t know everything parents ought to know. But now, the scientific evidence points to the fact that health habits from young can affect children profoundly when they grow up. So, with these measures, and others that will come under Grow Well SG, the government, with all our agencies, hope to provide more support and partner parents more closely in bringing up our children more healthily. Grow Well SG is about starting young and laying the groundwork for good lifestyle habits in children, and ensuring healthy growing up years.