Insights into Children's Lunchboxes: Understanding the Issues Impacting The Selection of Contents by Australian Parents

Abstract

Childhood obesity and overweight are among the most serious global health challenges of our time. Once considered a 'rich' country problem, childhood obesity is now widespread and increasing at an accelerating pace in many low and middle income countries. While there is evidence that growth in childhood obesity and overweight has slowed or stabilised in some OECD countries, there is no sign of convergence in prevalence rates and no sign of retrenchment of the epidemic. The aetiology of obesity is highly complex and requires suitably complex approaches if current prevalence is to be reduced and future incidence prevented. A body of knowledge about the effectiveness of obesity prevention programmes is emerging in high-income countries with results of meta-reviews becoming available and evaluation components increasingly included in interventions. Although much remains to be learned about specific types of intervention, the evidence strongly suggests that programmes that include coordinated elements in multiple settings are the most likely to succeed in the achievement of outcomes. Most recently, the WHO Working Group on Science and Evidence for Ending Childhood Obesity (2014) emphasised the importance of a systems-based and multi-sectoral and multi-jurisdictional approach for addressing childhood obesity. This approach is influenced by the life-course model of child development (WHO, 2013) and understands health outcomes as products of individual, family, community, and broader food and physical activity environments in interaction.