Dining in the dark

Eating habits have changed markedly in the past 20 years but neither health experts nor food manufacturers can tell us whether this is any better – or worse - for our health.

- BY NIKI BEZZANT

I think sometimes public health get labelled as these whiny woke people who are wanting stuff that isn't that important,” muses Professor Cliona Ni Murchu. “Or, you know, we're accused of being very nanny state.”

Just last month, Health Minister Simeon Brown criticised overreach by what he called the “health police”, ordering public health officials to stop commenting on issues such as fast food and concentrate on immunisations instead.

But now Ni Mhurchu, who leads a nutrition research programme at the University of Auckland medical school, finds herself and colleagues in an uncommon alliance with powerful players in the food industry. She notes diplomatically that the public health nutrition community and the food industry often have “quite conflicting views” about the best approaches to enhance nutrition.

“We have rarely ever worked together on anything, but this is the one topic that we are absolutely singing from the same song sheet about.”

She's talking about the need for a new National Nutrition Survey (NNS). The survey does what it says on the tin: a deep dive into what Kiwis are eating, and how that affects their health, by way of a detailed survey of thousands of people's diets alongside blood and other testing.

MINISTER SAYS NO

Ni Mhurchu and representatives of the Food and Grocery Council, which represents manufacturers and suppliers, recently got together to write a briefing that called for urgent action from the government. We need a new survey, they said, asap. The most recent survey of adults was released in 2009. In children, the survey hasn't been updated for more than two decades: it was last done in 2002.

Associate Health Minister Matt Doocey says there are no plans for a new survey. In a statement to the