Reducing Junk Food Consumption: Whose responsibility is it?

Posted on 22 February, 2017

This week, your media feed may have filled up with reports of the banning of ‘junk food’ at schools and sporting venues as part of a federal government push for improving the health of Australia.

Well, that’s the message that was relayed to me over the phone, by a local radio station, at 7.50am Monday morning while I was applying makeup and coordinating the dressing and bag packing of my six and eight-year-old as we readied ourselves for the day.

I chatted to the radio hosts about the issue. One of them was outraged at the fact that junk food could be banned at sports venues. He was an adult. He makes his own choices. Why should he be denied a hot pie and beer on a freezing cold day at GIO Stadium to watch the Raiders? And fair enough. I feel the same about chips and aioli.

I didn’t get to say much on air, apart from briefly mentioning why school canteens still sold ‘junk food’, the problem with consuming too much soft drink and that I could understand the thought behind this so-called ‘ban’, as research does show that when we change an environment we can change behaviour.

Being passionate about public health, particularly for kids and families, I spent a good chunk of time later in the morning trying to find more information about this so-called ‘ban’. News site after news site mentioned it and also included statements from Gary Sacks, a researcher from Deakin University. Then it all started making a little more sense.

I did some more digging, contacted Gary Sacks and got my hands on the original media release. Here’s the latest scoop on the issue:

The federal government is NOT putting a ban on junk foods.

Now that’s been cleared up, here’s the real story.

Gary Sacks is a researcher from Deakin University and he heads up a project, called the Food Policy Index, in collaboration with the Obesity Policy Coalition and The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre that includes more than 100 nutrition and policy experts from around Australia. The outcome of this collaboration was the release of a landmark report identifying critical action areas that the Australian Government could tackle to deal with the rise of obesity through unhealthy diets. The report is basically a scorecard of how well Australia’s doing to tackle overweight and obesity based on globally recommended policies. It then recommends, in much detail, where we could lift our game.

Ok, so backtrack for a second. It’s not about banning junk food? Nope, it’s not. Here’s some background info.

63% of Australian adults and 25% of Australian children are either overweight or obese. The costs associated with overweight and obesity have been estimated at $56 billion per year. Research shows that the way you improve population nutrition is to create healthy environments. The Food Policy Index report makes recommendations to governments across all levels: federal and state, on how they can create healthy environments in Australia and improve healthy eating.

What were the main recommendations?

I imagine, if you follow the news, you would have only heard about the proposed banning of junk food. I mean, can you blame the news sites? It’s the perfect click-bait headline. Enough to raise the angst of even the most placid of Australians, zealous of their right to personal choice.

Anyway, the report is rather large and there are LOTS of policy recommendations, each made specifically to each level of government and jurisdiction.

In a nutshell, the researchers are calling for governments to be more cohesive in their policies. Which makes complete sense. Let’s all work together! They want Australia to have an overall nutrition strategy (it doesn’t currently have one) and take concrete action to reduce the marketing of unhealthy foods to kids. Some of this may mean that there will be policies changing the availability of unhealthy food at government-run events and food outlets (which may include sporting venues), but I fail the read the word ‘ban’ in any of the recommendations.

If you’re keen to find out for yourself, here is the link to the original report.

My two cents

Eating well isn’t just for fit fanatics, natural ninjas or wellness warriors. There are healthy extremes (which is cool if you’re into that) and then there’s just healthy eating. And that’s for everyone. Finding guidance on making healthy eating a long-term part of your life (not just a 12-week challenge) is vital. You’ve got to look at your lifestyle as a whole, think about all aspects of your diet and make small, achievable long term changes. My team at The Healthy Eating Hub can help you do just that!

I don’t believe that the government should have to ban and strictly regulate things. We’re all adults and we all have the ability to make choices and take responsibility for those choices. Our bodies, our health. At the same time, parents, schools, governments and other community businesses and organisations have a responsibility to help create and shape healthy environments to make the healthy choice, the easy choice.

What do you think?