Healthy eating shouldn’t be a luxury

Last week I attended the Nutrition Society Annual Scientific Conference. It was my first time attending the event and I’m so excited to attend more to come. The conference was a gathering of important nutrition research done in New Zealand over the past year.

Much of the research was around how we can improve the nutrition status of New Zealanders so that we can bring down the prevalence of diseases that could be prevented by improving diet and lifestyle.

What I gathered, was that the biggest barrier to healthy eating in New Zealand was the issue of food insecurity.

Recognising that New Zealand still has one of the highest rates in the world of obesity, and has the second highest percentage in the world of overweight or obese children, it is concerning that despite increased efforts from individual companies and organisations to make healthy food more accessible, at a macro-level we aren’t seeing significant results.

Unfortunately, the issue boils down to being one of political nature rather than the faults of the individual. More than one in five NZ children live in food poverty- meaning that they live without access to wholesome food that will support good health, due to inequities in income and education. 

New Zealand is an obesogenic environment, and with limitless options for calorie dense food at low prices, the harsh reality is that it is those who already struggle to afford health care services are also are at greater risk of developing metabolic syndrome and the related life shortening health conditions- type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in particular.

So rather than worrying about which diet book Kiwis need to be reading, the biggest fish to fry (excuse the metaphor) is to minimise the sociopolitical barriers of healthy eating for all New Zealand demographics if we want to improve our health as a whole.

Healthy eating shouldn’t have the privilege status that it currently does. It should simply be a right that we all have.

Initiatives such as breakfast in schools and local vegetable gardens are already out there, they are a starting point, and they do help. But research shows that it’s not just the students attending low decile schools (where the breakfast in schools initiatives are typically implemented) who aren’t eating breakfast at home, and that food poverty is prevalent across the entire country and not just certain regions.

Lowering the cost of fruits and vegetables is another step that New Zealand can (and honestly should) take, especially considering how much produce is locally grown and therefore shouldn’t be as, or more, expensive than imported fruits and vegetables. However, the likelihood of doing so is predicted to have less of an impact on the healthiness of New Zealanders' diets than making unhealthy food (foods high in saturated fat, refined carbohydrates and sugar) more expensive.

I personally think that a combination of these strategies would be necessary to make a shift in the overall diet quality of Kiwis. However, I would expect there to be a lot of backlash to this approach. If the consumers of nutrient-poor, calorie-dense foods are largely lower income families and individuals, it would be unfair to tax them on these foods and potentially increase the cost of their grocery bill even more.

If unhealthy foods are being made more inaccessible (either by removing them from shelves or making them more expensive), we haven’t actually done anything to teach those who buy those foods what to be eating instead and we are just making food more expensive or inaccessible for them.

If we want Kiwis to start making better choices at the supermarket, the first step should be making healthy food more affordable, and the second step should be education, encouragement and accountability around meal planning and healthy eating patterns.

To get anyone to make changes to their diet- regardless of whether they have the resources- is difficult enough. But when time, finances and nutritional knowledge are also barriers, it’s just not going to be enough to lower the cost of fruits and vegetables and expect them to do the rest of the work themselves.

Perhaps there should be free healthy cooking classes, or free guided supermarket shopping sessions available for Kiwis who want to know how to make their dollar go further and improve their health at the same time. Perhaps healthy eating support groups that provide accountability should be more well known. Perhaps the cost of nutritionists, dietitians and personal trainers should be subsidised for those who really need it but can’t afford it.

There’s a huge number of things that we could do. It’s awesome that research within New Zealand is highlighting inequity as being the biggest issue when it comes to improving health, and hopefully this evidence leads to more initiatives that can help our country become healthier.

The key thing to remember is that it’s not the fault of the individual, it’s a complex issue that has its roots in the flaws of our society.