Speech by Minister of State for Health, Dr Amy Khor, at the Rise & Shine Carnival, 3 March 2013

Ladies and gentlemen,

Parents,

Boys and Girls.

A very Good Morning. I am pleased to be here with you on this lovely Sunday morning - I trust you are having a great time with your family.

2          Today, more than 2,000 people are gathered here with their families. For this, we are about to set a record for the largest number of people attending a breakfast picnic in Singapore. This feat signifies your commitment towards the healthy development of your children and underscores the importance of starting each day with a healthy meal. A recent survey showed that many children skipped breakfast.

About the Rise & Shine movement

3          The Rise & Shine Breakfast Carnival is a ground-up event spearheaded by four undergraduates from the Nanyang Technological University, in collaboration with a group of ‘super mummies’ from the Rise & Shine movement. Supported by various agencies and healthcare partners, this community-led initiative aims to share and identify holistic approaches towards raising healthier and happier children in Singapore.                                         

Raising Healthy Children

4          Parenting is a challenging but fulfilling task. I am a parent myself; my husband and I have three grown-up children. Parents, being here, you would know that children when they are young, that is the most enjoyable time of your lives as parents. You must treasure such moments. Of course, to develop and allow our children to grow to their fullest potential, the first thing we must ensure is that they have healthy development - healthy not just in terms of physical health, but also mental and emotional well-being.

5          Studies have shown that dietary habits of children are formed well before the age of five. In fact, it is very hard to change once they turn 11¹. We are also dealing with childhood obesity. It is now at 11% ^2,3 and we do want to fight against childhood obesity. So we need to encourage our parents to inculcate healthy habits in our children from young, such as healthy eating habits, exercising regularly and mental well-being and to communicate with them for emotional and mental well-being.

6          In fact, parents are the greatest role models. They say that children are the greatest imitators, so you need to give children something great to imitate. To that, you need to show your children through your actions, words and activities to inculcate a healthy lifestyle. For instance, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and exercise regularly. Sometimes when we ask children why they don’t eat fruits and vegetables, and they tell us that their mummies and daddies don’t eat fruits and vegetables too. So we need to encourage our children by role modelling. I think that is the greatest influence.

Enhanced Government Policies and the Role of the Community

7          The Government will do its part, so we have many programmes and initiatives to encourage and nurture a healthy living environment. For instance, in the schools, we want to encourage the schools to support a healthy living environment. So how do we do that? We get the schools to offer nutritious meals and snacks and so on at our tuck shops. Under the Healthy Eating Programme, we also offer healthy and nutritious meals at the pre-schools. These are among the many things that we do.

8          To fight obesity, we recently announced that we are undertaking a public consultation on advertising guidelines for food and beverages for children because very often, children are enticed by attractive advertisements to eat unhealthy food and snacks. There is a need to see how we can introduce guidelines to start to mitigate this. We will be announcing details of the public consultation and to see how to introduce these guidelines. I want to encourage parents, if you have not given us feedback, to give us feedback on this idea of introducing guidelines on against the advertising of food and beverages which are unhealthy.

9          The Rise & Shine Carnival that has been organised by the NTU students and the Rise & Shine ‘supper mummies’, is indeed a commendable effort. While the Government can do its part, everyone must play their part – parents, schools, caregivers and the community. Community programmes and community initiatives like these are really great in reinforcing our efforts to promote healthy living amongst families and particularly for our kids, so that we can ensure they grow up healthily and develop to their fullest potential. So we want to encourage more of you to come forward, join the Rise & Shine movement and other community partners to promote healthy living in Singapore. Together, we can raise healthier and happier children in Singapore.

Conclusion

10        Thank you for coming to this event and I hope to see you more often at such events. I want to end here by saying that it is a rare opportunity for the family to come together, so I think that we should take this opportunity to tell our loved ones that we cherish them and love them. This is a good opportunity to hug your mummies and daddies, and tell them you love them. Together, we can eat more vegetables and fruits and exercise regularly, and drink more water instead of sweetened drinks.

11        Thank you very much and have a wonderful day ahead.

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¹ http://www.hpb.gov.sg/HOPPortal/health-article/10712
² Loke, K.Y., Lin, J.B.Y. and Deurenberg-Yap, M. (2008) Third College of Paediatrics and Child Health Lecture – The past, the present and the future shape of things to come. Annals Academy of Medicine, 37, 429–434.
³ Ministry of Education. (2012) Parliamentary reply on “Obesity and health promotion amongst students”. 13 August 2012.