20 November 2007

Trim and Fit aka TAF Club

[How Singapore battled obesity]
[transcript]

Remember TAF club? I was never a member, thankfully, because I was pathetically skinny even till now. But I remember laughing at the TAF club people as they jump up and down in the hall. "Elephants", that's what I used to called them. Hey, common I was 14. It was a really difficult period.

I have always think that the getting all the heavy people together in a group is a bad idea. It doesn't take a genius to imagine that the kids are going to be made fun of. And I sincerely, believes that there's more harm than good. Apparently, some of these kids grew up and needed psychological help.
...David Kan, counsels several past members of Trim and Fit clubs. He says some of these children are deeply scarred by the experience.
Kan: They do feel the stigma that I’m being short-listed for this program means I’m labelled a person that is obese and as a result I may be a potential outcast in the school. And to them, if I am fat perhaps I’m a failure, I am a loser.
And here we have the official respond:
Education officials insist that no-one set out to stigmatize overweight children. It’s just turned out to be a by-product of the program a by-product nonetheless tolerated by officials for 15 years.
And according to statistics earlier:
...Singapore has achieved remarkable success in its fight against childhood obesity. The proportion of school-age children classified by the government as obese has fallen from 14% to 9% in the past 15 years. During that same period, just about everywhere else in Asia has seen childhood obesity rise.
Once again, the Singapore government is reminding us that these children are not just sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. They are also numbers.

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