With 91% of Australian children not meeting recommended fruit and vegetable intake, mealtimes can be a daily struggle for many families. One WA Nurse experienced this firsthand with her son, who has highly selective eating habits. Mealtimes were a daily source of stress and limited to a few basic foods which became a challenge and left her worried that her son’s nutrition was far below recommended guidelines.
“I was just finding mealtimes were incredibly stressful in the house,” said the Nurse. “I dreaded dinner time every night because I felt like I was feeding my child unhealthy things on most days, even though I work in health.”
She turned to the Better Health Program, a free government funded healthy lifestyle program for 6-12yr olds, which provided strategies to gradually introduce new foods, involving her two children in meal preparation, and making mealtimes engaging and positive for the whole family. “One of the really big things we took away as a family is involving the kids in cooking and meal preparation. That’s helped them try more new things and actually made mealtimes something fun that we do together,” she says.
The program has also helped her children, including her son with ADHD, develop a better understanding of food choices: “It’s given me a language to talk to the kids about the difference between food choice…without attaching shame. It’s lovely, I love it.”
According to the 2023 Health and Wellbeing Surveillance System (HWSS) report, approximately 1 in 4 children aged 5–15 in Western Australia are classified as overweight or obese, highlighting the urgent need to support families in improving children’s nutrition. The recently released UNICEF 2025 Child Nutrition Report supports this concern, showing that the prevalence of obesity among school-age children and adolescents has now exceeded underweight for the first time ever. Programs like the Better Health Program are helping families take practical steps to prevent this trend.
She says the program has not only improved nutrition but also reduced stress around meals: “I find I am less stressed at mealtimes now, so yes, this program is absolutely worth doing!”
The Better Health Program shows that with guidance from a health professional and realistic and achievable goals, families can make meaningful improvements in children’s overall health.
As a referring Nurse, she is encouraging her own patients and all Western Australian families to join the family based and adult programs offered by Better Health Company, which are funded by the Western Australia Department of Health, and designed to help children, families and adults make simple, practical improvements towards a healthier lifestyle.
To register or find more information on the Better Health Program, visit www.betterhealthprogram.org or phone 1300 822 953.