About 95 per cent of Aussie kids are not consuming enough vegetables each day. A new national research initiative, called VegKIT, aims to do something about this health disaster. Run by CSIRO, Flinders University and Nutrition Australia, VegKIT's goal is to help establish healthy dietary habits in children to help prevent negative health outcomes.
Increasing vegetable consumption may reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, as well as help maintain a healthy weight. A study commissioned by Hort Innovation found that higher levels of vegetable consumption would lead to significant reductions in government health costs, by as much as $100 million per year, due to improvements in the health of Australians.
The work will include revising dietary advice to mothers, working with childcare providers to improve children's experiences of vegetables and working with industry to make vegetable products more appetising for children.
This is a great step forward to help improve the health of children and adults. It also gives a higher profile to plant based and vegan diets and may lower some of the barriers to becoming vegan. Vegan Australia applauds the organisations behind this project, including the funding body Hort Innovation.
Links
- VegKIT
- $4M investment to get kids eating 19,000 tonnes more veg a year
- New vegetable registry to help Aussie kids eat more
- Economic Modelling of the Impact of Increased Vegetable Intake on Health Expenditure, Horticulture Innovation Australia
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