How much of what we eat is really about individual choice?
Every day, the places around us influence what we see, what feels normal and what is easiest to buy. Fast-food outlets near schools, unhealthy food advertising on public transport, promotions at supermarket checkouts and food and drink sponsorship in sport all form part of that environment.
A new WA community movement called Un-junk wants to change it.
Led by Cancer Council WA and supported by a coalition of health and community organisations, including Health Consumers’ Council WA, Un-junk is building community support for healthier food environments across Western Australia.
For HCCWA, this issue connects closely with how we think about fairness in healthcare.
Good health should not depend only on whether an individual has enough information, time, money or willpower to make a particular choice. The environments in which we live, learn, work, travel and spend time also shape our health.
WA Health itself recognises this. Its evidence on food environments notes that unhealthy diets, overweight and obesity are major contributors to disease and disability in Western Australia, and that food marketing, pricing, availability and the built environment all influence health. WA Health also says there is a need to move away from blaming individuals and recognise the wider environmental and social factors involved.
That is one reason HCCWA was pleased to support Cancer Council WA to hear directly from community members with a range of lived experiences while the Un-junk campaign materials were being developed.
Consumer voices matter here because policies about advertising, planning, supermarkets and sponsorship affect the environments all of us use.
What is Un-junk asking for?
The campaign is focusing on four areas: neighbourhoods, advertising, supermarkets and sport.
It is calling for stronger rules around fast-food development near schools and homes, unhealthy food advertising, supermarket promotions and unhealthy food sponsorship in sport.
Advertising is one particularly visible example.
Cancer Council WA reports that Perth school children can encounter between nine and 70 outdoor unhealthy food advertisements on their journey to school. It also reports that 77% of food and drink advertising on Perth school buses promotes unhealthy products.
The issue is not new.
WA’s Sustainable Health Review recommended that the State Government use its role as an employer, regulator, purchaser and landlord to create healthier environments, including by removing unhealthy food and drink promotions and sales from State assets.
Un-junk gives community members practical ways to keep that conversation moving.
You can join the movement, contact your MP, photograph unhealthy food advertising you see in your community, share supermarket promotions that concern you, take part in the campaign’s sport sponsorship poll or connect with other people taking action locally.
That community evidence matters.
If people repeatedly see unhealthy food advertising at bus stops, near schools, at sporting grounds or throughout their local neighbourhood, documenting those experiences helps show what our food environment actually looks like from the community’s perspective.
That is very much an HCCWA principle.
People who live with the consequences of systems, services and policies often see things that decision-makers do not. Creating ways for those experiences to be heard can lead to better decisions.
Preventing illness is also part of building a fairer health system. If we want fewer people developing preventable illness and needing hospital care later, we need to think about the conditions that shape health long before somebody becomes a patient.
Un-junk is one opportunity for Western Australians to be part of that conversation.
If unhealthy food advertising, fast-food development, supermarket promotions or sponsorship in sport concern you, you can add your voice.
Join the campaign and help shape healthier food environments across WA.