BIBI CHIA, 37
Principal dietitian at Raffles Medical Group.
Her patients range from pregnant women to sufferers of anorexia to tube-fed patients. Her work extends to health talks, conducting cooking demonstrations to help even inexperienced cooks put a meal together, and designing workplace weight management programmes to improve the health and lifestyles of employees.
“My passion is in public health. I want to extend the benefits to everyone, not only the people who walk into the hospital.”
That is why Chia is developing a phone app to help users achieve their health goals and connect with doctors or trainers. “The app will help people to identify the health goals they want to achieve, then show them how to achieve them. For example, they can set goals to lose weight, eat healthy, achieve better control of diabetes, or improve their mental health. The app will send reminders, allow users to log actions and track their progress, and link them to professionals if they need to see them. It will be especially good for mental well-being, for people who want to help themselves or seek help, but don’t know how. It is not going to solve mental illness or depression, but it is a good start for people seeking help.”