Daylesford school lunches a whole-community approach on obesity issue

The primary school lunch program Healthy Lunches Kitchen aims to buck overweight and obesity trends from the grassroots, working with farmers and young growers in the region as a prototype for what could be possible and creating changed habits for the future.

This comes as new data shows working-age adults in inner regional areas were 1.2 times more likely to be overweight or obese compared to metropolitan Australians. An Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, released on Tuesday, also showed waist circumference was 1.4 times higher in outer regional areas than big cities.

The decade-long social determinants inequalities report into overweight and obesity report also listed mortgage holders and renters were 1.2 times more likely to outweigh home-owners.

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Adults who had not completed or attended secondary school, and their children, were more likely to be overweight or obese compared to adults and children whose parents who had higher qualifications.

Central Highlands Regional Partnerships sparked action on such trends three years ago, launching a prevention lab that, while wrapping up last year, channelled a focus on the Hepburn Shire to be change leaders.

Healthy Lunches Kitchen is a component of this, a year-long trial offering Daylesford Primary School pupils lunch order alternatives from fresh-made, seasonal options based on produce sourced from the region.

The lab created the SHIFT model (Sustainable Healthy Integrated Food Towns) working with Hepburn community leaders and is one Melissa Jenkins, a spokesperson for the project's lead organisation Health Futures Australia, hoped could be both up-scaled and adapted to community needs in other shires.

"It's been a tough six months' learning for us, even just in providing lunches...We're a health promotion charity, so we're also not going to let anyone go hungry, so we need to best figure out how to offer free or discounted lunches to children who need it in a way that does not have stigma and is not obvious," Ms Jenkins said.

"It really is a program run by local people with a lot of volunteer hours to make it happen."

Ms Jenkins said the program had created a number of jobs to raise awareness and use of regional produce, turn it into food and engage the wider community.

Recipes are packed with vegetables and shared as school holiday activities.

"Kids are loving it. We had some feedback that on of the kids kissed her plate as she put it in the bin, she loved her lunch so much," Ms Jenkins said. "We want to be moving away from, 'my kids don't eat this or that', because there are so many veggies in these foods they like."

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