Singapore launches "Let's Drink Water" campaign
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E-mail Xinhua, August 30, 2012
Singapore launches "Let's Drink Water" campaign
SINGAPORE, Aug.30 (Xinhua) -- The Health Promotion Board of Singapore said on Thursday it is launching a campaign to promote the habit of drinking water instead of sugary drinks.
The board will be working with pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools and post-secondary education institutions to raise the awareness of the importance of water consumption and encourage students to replace sugary drinks with water, it said.
Surveys conducted by the Health Promotion Board showed that many local children and teens consume sugary drinks every day, prompting the statutory body to launch the country's first "Let's Drink Water" campaign.
A survey conducted by the board in 2009 showed that 43 percent of the students in secondary schools, junior colleges and the centralized institute consumed sugary drinks daily.
Another survey conducted by the Health Promotion Board among parents and caregivers between 2008 and 2009 showed that 28 percent provided sugary drinks more than once a week to their children between four and nine years old. This percentage increased to 34 percent for children aged 10 years and above.
Researches show that the consumption of sugary drinks is associated with poor dietary choices and obesity in children, which often follow them to adulthood.
The Health Promotion Board has helped pre-schools develop a lesson plan for teachers to encourage water drinking among children.
Ang Hak Seng, chief executive officer of the Health Promotion Board, said the campaign is aimed to help the children form good habits so that "they can be healthy not only when they're children, but because of the good habit, they can be healthy when they're adults."
Local broadcaster Channel NewsAsia quoted Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, the parliamentary secretary for health, as saying that it is all about making drinking water fun.
"Children like fun things. You don't make it like 'you must drink this, you must not do this and that.' It gets very difficult. From my experience, if you make it natural, you make it easy for them to do it. You make it part of their life, a phenomenon not strange to them, then it'd be very useful," he said. Enditem
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