10/06/2026
Do you know that the TAF Club was very successful, but it was still discontinued?
Read on to know what happened to it!
Firstly, what is TAF Club?
TAF Club, short for the Trim and Fit programme, was a weight-management initiative run by Singapore's Ministry of Education to tackle childhood obesity in schools between 1992 and 2007.
Introduced as part of the National Healthy Lifestyle Campaign following a 1991 health review, it was multidisciplinary, targeting students, parents, teachers, and the wider school environment across primary, secondary and pre-university levels.
So, how does it work?
In practice, nutrition education entered the curriculum, canteen food faced controls, and water coolers were installed to encourage plain water.
But what people remembered is this: Students in TAF Club were assigned extra exercise during recess or outside school hours, and some schools used food ration coupons that capped calories, with heavier students allowed to buy less.
Schools had wide discretion, leading to varying experiences.
Does it work?
By the numbers, it worked, cutting the proportion of overweight schoolchildren from 14% in 1992 to about 9.5% by 2006.
But criticism was severe.
The stigma was brutal, with some schools using near-segregation arrangements and many members reporting teasing, stress and low self-esteem. The name is also spelled "FAT" backwards.
A 2005 NUS study linked the programme to increased disordered eating, though MOE disputed any direct connection.
So, what happened to it?
In 2007, MOE scrapped the programme, acknowledging that focusing solely on overweight children would always carry stigma.
Its replacement, the Holistic Health Framework, remains in use today and addresses the physical, mental and social health of all students.
Rather than singling pupils out, it supports those outside the healthy weight range discreetly through journaling, goal-setting and action planning.
