Fruit and Vegetable Consortium report calls for healthy behaviour change

The radical idea was one of the suggestions to come from a new report from the Fruit and Vegetable Consortium (FVC), just in time for National Nutrition Week (October 16-23).

Entitled "Shifting the dial on vegetable consumption - Rebuilding healthy families in a COVID-19 affected and disrupted Australia", the report was prepared by KPMG, with Medibank serving as major sponsor.

The report recommends a national behaviour change strategy is needed to lift vegetable consumption to help reverse the risk of a health crisis due to eating habits that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the report, which was launched with a thought leadership event on October 5 in Melbourne, the pandemic contributed to Australians eating more takeaway and home delivered meals, a greater dependence on snacks, and lower consumption of vegetables.

Within its findings, affordability was identified as an area that needed to be addressed.

"Affordability should be at the core of the strategy," the report said.

"The combination of rising inflation and perception of the high vegetables cost outlined in this research, represents a material risk to vegetable consumption.

"The expert panel wants to explore changes to the way vegetables are priced in grocery stores, that is -per kilogram -which can be interpreted as high cost.

"The expert panel believe price per individual item or price per recommended serve (75g) may better represent the cost of vegetables in a daily meal."

The report combined three streams of work - consumer surveys and community-based focus groups that identified barriers and motivators to vegetable consumption; a grower survey to test the perspective of the horticultural sector; and Expert Advisory Panel workshops to further identify solutions.

The FVC has called for a national behaviour change strategy that is sponsored and integrated with all levels of government and has alignment across States and Territories.

FVC managing director Justine Coates said Australians know eating an extra serve of vegetables daily is a simple way to improve their health.

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"But the pandemic and lockdowns reinforced barriers linked to affordability, concerns over food waste and the lack of time and inspiration needed to prepare good meals," Ms Coates said.

"A national behaviour change campaign can empower consumers with the information they need to make the right choices for themselves.

"We also know that if Australians ate an extra cup of vegetables a day we could wipe more than $200 million off our ballooning health budget."

Other findings of the report included:

Medibank chief medical officer Dr Linda Swan welcomed the report saying about $38 billion is spent each year on care for people with chronic disease.

"Almost half of all Australian adults have preventable health conditions," Dr Swan said.

"Being proactive about chronic disease management and prevention is needed to deliver better health outcomes, while also delivering long-term sustainable benefits for the health system.

"A key element to improving health and wellbeing is eating well, I hope the findings of this report encourage all Australians to review their diet and take nutrition seriously."

THE call for a national behaviour change initiative towards vegetables is the latest in an ongoing string of campaigns, movements and ideas to lift Australians' vegetable consumption.

In February, Outdoor Media Association (OMA) in partnership with Health & Wellbeing Queensland and Nutrition Australia ran the "Better than you remember" campaign featuring billboards encouraging consumers to eat more vegetables.

In the same month, Nutrition Australia and Ausveg, co-leads of the FVC, made the bold pre-federal election request for an investment of $100 million for growing vegetable consumption.

Hort Innovation pushed its VegKIT idea in 2020 to provide a collection of practical tools, resources and interventions which support children, educators and health care professionals to make vegetables a more central focus for Aussie kids.

Hort Innovation also launched the whole-of-horticulture campaign, The Good Mood Food Campaign in 2020, its Veggycation website which features the nutrition, origins, health benefits of vegetables, plus cooking and storage tips for more than 80 vegetables was given a revamp in 2019.

In 2017 Nutrition Australia launched the "Try for 5" slogan to inspire Aussies to eat five serves of vegetables a day.

One of the most successful promotions was the "Go for 2&5" campaign which ran in Western Australia from 2002 to 2012, and was also adopted nationally.

Ms Coates said governments have a range of good strategies to improve preventative health, reduce obesity, lift health literacy and reduce food waste.

"A compelling behavioural change campaign can propel progress against these good goals by presenting solutions that help consumers overcome barriers to consumption," she said.

"As well as improving health outcomes, increased vegetable consumption will have the added benefit of supporting growers, regional communities and retailers."

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