Ever since becoming a health coach in 2006, ex-Mediacorp actress Jacelyn Tay has been going all out to advocate the benefits of healthy eating on her social media.
Yesterday (Nov 12), the 49-year-old star shared a video of Minister for Education Chan Chun Sing speaking about the future of food options for school at the Parliament.
In his speech, Minister Chan talked about working with schools to monitor food quality, quantity and prices.
He also shared that MOE is exploring a variety of canteen operating models, such as allowing some schools to have pre-ordered food which will be prepared at a central kitchen.
In an IG Story, Jacelyn shared that she had left comments on Minister Chan’s video urging parents to “all come together and brainstorm the solution”.
Jacelyn shared in subsequent stories that she believes the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Health (MOH) should work together to provide better nutrition for our next generation.
Jacelyn has a 13-year-old son Zavier with ex-husband Brian Wong, whom she split from in 2018.
“Poor dietary habits are going to affect our young whose organs and brain are still developing,” she wrote, before condemning schools for selling “junk snacks, sweetened drinks” in canteens.
“What dietary habits are we instilling? They will be the next generation growing up drinking fizzy drinks, eating chemical-labeled snacks, falling sick often and having diseases earlier.”
Jacelyn also griped about schools providing catered food as students might grow up to become “parents who give their children microwaved/oven foods too”.
According to her, that also might lead to the possible increase in intake of microplastics.
Jacelyn went on to give her suggestions to curb the problems.
She first asked the government to possibly fund healthier eating in schools, at the same time providing aid to younger entrepreneurs who have passion in food and nutrition.
For instance, Jacelyn suggested that schools can have trendy salad bars or soba noodles in schools.
The actress also asked if there was a way to use robots, AI or technology to provide freshly cooked food in schools.
Though to be honest, would you rather eat food cooked by the friendly canteen vendors or meals prepared by a soulless robot?
Also, can you imagine how much it would cost to install highly functional and intricately programmed cooking-robots in every school? We do have sandwich-making machines here but we’re sure Jacelyn would not find them too nutritional either.
Lastly, the actress also questioned how MOE/MOH is going to encourage more parents to prep food for their children as “educating parents makes a lot of difference and perhaps could reduce the number of vendors needed in each school”.
Let’s be real though. How many parents, especially those who are working, have the luxury of time to prepare food for their children every day?
While Jacelyn acknowledged that there’s no easy solution to these problems, she believes it’s something we can “overcome as a nation”.
So, thoughts? Do you think Jacelyn’s suggestions are feasible?