What is being done to stop obesity and poor nutrition in Australia?

Answer 1

From an official point of view, not a great deal. Naturally there are many different situations that can lead to poor nutrition besides the obvious addiction people seem to have to high sugar high fat fast foods. Australians by world standard on average enjoy a very high standard of living. this gives most Australian a choice in the foods that they would like to consume. Our high income makes it easy for us to simply go out and purchase something to eat rather then prepare it on a fairly regular basis. these prepared fast foods more often then not are drowned in cheap unhealthy fats that end up leading to all kinds of poor health out comes including obesity. There is a growing movement among main stream Australians to think about the quality of the foods that are being put on offer. This in turn is leading to mainstream fast food producers putting a healthier choice of foods on offer that are still presented to appeal to children Where the choice was once a greasy piece of chicken , chips and your choice of sugary soft drink. now fruit and salads and fruit juices instead are available in the same packaging with the same plastic toys, which many kids seem to accept,. Pressure is being put on school canteens to offer a more nutritious lunch for the kid that buy their lunches. and there is no end to the amount of media suggestions are being put forward regarding healthy nutritious diet and exercise. When Australia started it new GST taxation system unprepared fruit vegetables and some other foods that were not prepared were made exempt from the tax making home prepared foods cheaper for people to buy. Australia also has a social system that will keep income coming into the hands of people that are unemployed, sick, disabled, or beyond working age. The measures also help many Australians keep up healthy nutrition in their daily lives. However it must be kept in mind that regardless of what people know about good nutrition and how to avoid obesity in a democratic country the values human rights there is no way that people can be forced to live healthy lives if they chose not to. people with drinking, Drug and gambling problems will tend to buy the cheapest least nutritious foods and the pity of it is that often these people have children that are forced to live under the same conditions. Governments are loath to do too much about these problems because the sellers of these services have a lot of influence around election time and they also rake in a lot of money in tax as a result. In the end what is being done about obesity and good nutrition depends very much on the individual and their influence over their family. People are constantly being made aware of the healthy choices they have and in most places here it is more easily affordable to eat good healthy foods then to eat rubbish.