Health and Wellbeing Queensland recently released their draft Queensland Obesity Prevention strategy (2023-2032) and Strengthen (2023-2025) Action Plan for public consultation. Health and Wellbeing Queensland and the Queensland government took a leadership role in the development of the National Obesity Strategy and it is encouraging to see them advancing this with a strategy and action plan for Queensland. We also applaud their consistent and continued community engagement in the development of their strategies and plans.

We submitted our feedback on the draft Queensland Obesity Prevention strategy and action plan in the last week of November 2022. There are many positive aspects of the strategy and plan including the narrative shift to collective responsibility, focus on the continuum from prevention to care and treatment and the recognition of stigma and the barrier it creates for many people seeking care.

Our key recommendations were that person-centred care needs to be emphasised, food environments should be addressed through policy, collaboration between states and federal governments can be leveraged to identify joint priorities and create efficiencies as well as  some key elements of framing the challenge of obesity to reduce stigma.

You can read our full response here. Thanks again to the team in Queensland for the opportunity to provide feedback.