FOI 25-1519 IC – Feed Australia Program

Written by Claude Haiku 4.5 from the extracted text on 27 Feb 2026. It can miss or misread redacted and scanned pages. Check the source before relying on it.

In March 2017, the Department of Health received a proposal for the Feed Australia program, a nutrition intervention targeting childhood obesity through early childhood education services. The program uses technology to make dietary science accessible to childcare providers, enables compliance with nutrition guidelines, and provides real-time data on food provision for research purposes. Officials noted obesity affects 60% of Australian adults and 25% of youth, costing approximately $9 billion annually. The proposal, supported by the Council of Presidents of Medical Colleges and aligned with the National Obesity Strategy, requested approximately $1.5 million in grant funding over the forward estimates to drive uptake and engagement. The program would be offered at no cost to services with self-sustainability arrangements, designed to reduce the regulatory burden on childcare facilities while supporting prevention of obesity-related preventable mortality and morbidity.