SINGAPORE - National swimmer Quah Ting Wen has struggled with mental health issues, and was diagnosed with depression in 2017.
When she was living by herself while studying in the University of California, Berkeley, United States, from 2010 to 2014, she put a lot of pressure on herself to be the best that she could be, promising herself that she would do her family and country proud.
To cope, she turned to emotional eating, as food became the way for her to control her body. She would have two weeks of strict eating but would sometimes miss home so much she would go completely off her diet, leaving her in a bad place mentally.
In her second year of university, Quah broke her arm and needed surgery. She said: “To me, it was normal, doing everything by myself. I think only looking back, I realised how much I had taken on when I had left (home), so I think a lot of that shaped me.
“A lot of that made me tougher, but at the same time it also taught me how I needed to allow myself to be soft and open and vulnerable around people who were there, who wanted to help me, who wanted to support me.”
Quah, 30, who has represented Singapore in major events like the Olympics, Swimming World Cup and SEA Games, shared her story during the live recording of the 109th episode of the Health Check podcast at The Straits Times Podcasts’ Fifth Anniversary event on June 20.
As part of the celebrations, episodes of two podcasts – Green Pulse and Health Check – were recorded in front of a live audience at Temasek Shophouse.
The goal was to provide the audience with an opportunity to engage with ST podcasters and guest speakers, as well as unveil the new ST podcast logos. The event was well-received, with over 60 attendees.
Since ST Podcasts was launched in June 2018, there have been about four million downloads of the shows, with a million alone in 2022.
As at 2023, ST has about 10 podcast channels pushing out episodes every week covering health, social and eco-issues, geopolitics from an Asian perspective, money and career tips, and sports and pop culture talking points.
In 2022, the Unsolved Mysteries of South-east Asia series bagged the Best Podcast / Digital Audio Project – Gold award at Digital Media Awards Asia.
Podcast editor Ernest Luis said: “I’m very surprised that we have made it until this stage, and at this kind of performance level. In the beginning, we had a lot of challenges, such as not having a technical team editing the podcasts, or having enough guests, but it’s changed a lot, really.”
He said that while 70 per cent of the 20,000 monthly listeners across the suite of podcasts are from Singapore, 5 per cent are from the US and 3 per cent each from Malaysia and Japan, showing the wide reach of the podcasts.
Mr Luis moderated the 102nd Green Pulse episode on rising sea levels, which was recorded live at the event. It featured Ms Kong Man Jing, co-founder of Just Keep Thinking, a YouTube channel dedicated to educational videos about biodiversity in everyday life, as well as Ms Audrey Tan, Science Communications & Outreach lead at the National University of Singapore Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions.
ST senior health correspondent Joyce Teo moderated the panel for the Health Check episode. The other panellists were Mr Sherman Ho, co-founder of Happiness Initiative, and Ms Sabrina Ooi, CEO and co-founder of Calm Collective Asia.
“It was a great experience, as the mood and energy at a live event is something that you can’t experience in a studio session,” said Ms Teo.
“I also had three wonderful guests. What struck me was how open and candid they were in talking about their experiences, and also how willing they were to help others tackle any mental health challenges they may have.”
If you’re keen to discover ST’s entire podcast network of shows, the ‘one-stop shop’ way to do it is via your fave audio apps:
Channel: https://str.sg/wvz7
Apple Podcasts: https://str.sg/wukK
Spotify: https://str.sg/wukH
Google Podcasts: https://str.sg/wukr
