Healthy and Happy Australia: The Aim

In Australia, the Fruit and Vegetable Consortium is a particular group that is made up of leading healthcare professionals, researchers and industrial horticulture groups. At the present moment, due to the situation brought about by the pandemic, this Consortium is aiming to fuel a happy and healthy Australia. Hence, they are asking all of the official parties, such as governments, manufacturers, growers, retailers and health insurers to encourage the citizens to foster a positive change. However, this can only be possible if there is a collaboration that readily supports the advertisements targeted towards educational programs and national marketing. The sole aim of these promotional messages is to motivate Australians to lead a healthy lifestyle by consuming more vegetables in their daily lives.

In order to fulfil this aim, the Fruit and Vegetable Consortium has recently assembled a business case that shows that every $1 invested in a behaviour change program to increase vegetable consumption results in a $10 return on investment. Therefore, this results in a healthy nation. Also, if Australians ate 10 per cent extra vegetables every day (less than ¼ of a serve of food), there would be a $100 million reduction in health expenditure per annum.

Elevated consumption of vegetables will lead to improved health and well-being. This will drive reductions in mental and physical health issues, obesity, and other illnesses, which will generate as much as $1 billion healthy economic value after 11 years to Australian taxpayers and Governments at all levels. The FVC has recently appointed Justine Coates as Managing Director, with responsibility for leading strategic direction, garnering public and private sector support, fundraising, structuring of investments, and delivery of program initiatives. Australia is now the 5th most obese country in the world and our health outcomes are not improving. Hence, this plan needs to be put into effect at the earliest.