The National Obesity Prevention Strategy 2022-2032 – Draft Release

Overweight and obesity is an urgent and complex public health issue. At last, the long-awaited draft National Obesity Prevention Strategy 2022-2032 has been released for consultation.

The idea of developing an obesity strategy was agreed back in 2018 by Australian and State and Territory health ministers being led by the Queensland Department of Health. The process has taken some time, but to be fair, the Department has been managing a COVID-19 pandemic. 

Not surprisingly, one of the key focus areas (Under Ambition 1) is improving the healthiness of foods and drinks supplied to Australians. Suggested actions include the use of economic policy (e.g., tax) to shift consumer purchases, food reformulation, setting composition limits for amounts of nutrients of concern, and reducing the serving sizes of unhealthy food and drinks especially for children. Other examples of potential actions affecting the food industry are the use of prominent advisory labels on packaged foods, continual improvement of the Health Star Rating, and prominence and promotion of healthy foods in food retail settings. 

The draft strategy can be found here. Public consultation on the draft Strategy is open until 3 November 2021. The AFGC Secretariat submitted in 2019  a response to the first Consultation Paper (available from the Member section of the AFGC website).

The AFGC will respond to the current consultation of the draft Strategy. For more information or to contribute to the AFGC’s submission, please contact Anne-Marie Mackintosh.