A Daughter’s Illness Changed Everything: How Former Actress Nicola Cheung Built a New Life on Preventive Care, Collaborative Parenting, and Social Enterprise

Three years ago, former Hong Kong actress Nicola Cheung faced a moment every parent dreads: her eldest daughter became seriously ill. The experience forced her to confront how quickly life can change—and, she says, pushed her to "actively look for more preventive ways to care for my own health and my family's health." Now a mother of four and co-founder of the agri-food social enterprise LoCoFarms, Cheung has built a practical philosophy around preventive care, peer-style parenting, and community resilience. Here are the six core lessons she shares from that turning point.

Proactive Health Management and Preventive Care

Cheung's first lesson is also her hardest-won: do not rely on guesswork. Because she lacked professional medical knowledge, she decided to "seek advice from professionals" and use expert guidance to "make more of the right choices and plan my life and my family's health better." This principle extends beyond doctor visits. She has purchased critical illness insurance and other life/investment products to fund future needs such as her children's education, viewing insurance as a tool to be "future-ready" and prepared for the unexpected. On a daily level, she emphasises small, repeatable habits: spending time in nature for mental and physical health, and, above all, prioritising sleep. "With more sleep, you get your mind more relaxed," she says.

A Collaborative Approach to Parenting

Cheung explicitly rejects a "top-down" parenting style as outdated. With her 17-year-old daughter, she talks "like an older sister or a friend" rather than repeating "'Mum says so, so do it.'" Becoming a mother, she says, was her "true turning point." "When I was a daughter, I only had to take care of myself, and now I have to look at the whole situation, the whole family," she explains. That concern for her children's safety also catalysed a major career shift: in 2010, she enrolled in a two-year environmental management master's degree at the University of Hong Kong because her daughters made her deeply aware of environmental pollution and food-safety issues affecting the next generation.