That ICPA (Aust) advocate to the Federal Government to direct ACARA (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority) to review and elevate food literacy beyond its current status as a "Curriculum Connection" to a mandated, standalone learning priority in rural and remote schools.
Food and nutrition are currently addressed across Health & Physical Education, Design and Technologies, HASS, Science and Mathematics, with a Food and Wellbeing Curriculum Connection. This is often covered in the context of what to eat as per the Australian Dietary Guidelines, food preparation and food choices. Given the weight of evidence linking diet to mental health, behaviour, and learning, it should be elevated to a clearly defined, standalone priority in the curriculum, with specific, measurable student outcomes tied to understanding food as a biological input to brain function, mental health, behaviour and learning - and that delivery of this priority be incorporated into school performance reporting frameworks.
The latest release of food and nutrients data presented by ABS shows Australia’s dietary pattern is skewed towards discretionary foods - which are the foods and drinks not necessary to provide the nutrients the body needs. The statistics indicate this ranging from 27% to 37.3% of % of average daily energy intake, whilst only 4.3% of children between 2 and 17 ate the recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables. According to research, the higher consumption of discretionary foods and lower consumption of whole foods in the average Australian diet has led to higher rates of mental health issues, behavioural and learning difficulties.
In Australia, there is minimal regulation on how the manufacturing industry can market its products. This can mislead consumers and ultimately cause a change in their overall diet and well-being. Empowering young people from an early age about the science and link between nutrition, mood, behaviour and performance will help them navigate this system through increased knowledge.
To build stronger and more resilient rural communities, we need to stand for children’s health and support them to become food literate. This must include an understanding of the connection between food, their body, brain and the planet, as well as knowing what to eat, how to grow and cook it. This would be particularly beneficial in remote areas where there can be limited availability and high-cost produce.
CASE STUDY – What Australian Primary School children are eating and why it matters to the classroom
Australian classrooms are already experiencing the consequences of what children eat, yet the connection between food and classroom behaviour remains largely absent from curriculum and teacher training.
Research shows that the quality of the food consumed impacts the body and brain. Ultra-processed foods contribute to increased inflammation, which is linked to our mental health. Our gut communicates directly to the brain via the vagus nerve and produces neurotransmitters that regulate our mood. When a higher number of processed foods and a lower number of wholefoods are consumed, it leads to nutritional deficiencies in the diet that directly affect energy and mental health. It also causes rapid glucose spikes and crashes, therefore directly impacting concentration and engagement in classrooms.
Understanding what is happening inside Australian primary school lunchboxes is an essential context for this motion. Since 2019, longitudinal food and waste survey data has been collected from Australian primary schools. The dataset now represents 26,534 lunchboxes across 1,373 classes and 122 schools. (Food and Waste Surveys of Australian Primary School Lunchboxes, 2019–2025. Collected by Belinda Smith, The Root Cause. Independently analysed.)
The data reveals that the average Australian primary school lunchbox contains:
• 2.1 ultra-processed packet foods per day
• Approximately 10.3 food additives per lunchbox
• 4.2 teaspoons of sugar per lunchbox
• Just 0.4 serves of vegetables
Why this matters for classrooms is now well-established in the research.
A meta-analysis by Khazdouz et al. (2024), published in European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, examined nine studies involving more than 58,000 children and adolescents. The finding was clear: children consuming more ultra-processed foods were approximately 25% more likely to exhibit ADHD symptoms – an association that held across the highest-quality studies in the analysis.
The additives within those ultra-processed foods are also independently implicated. The landmark Southampton Study – McCann et al. (2007), published in The Lancet – was a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 297 children. The research found that artificial food colours combined with sodium benzoate preservative resulted in increased hyperactivity in the general population of children, not just those with a diagnosis of ADHD. These results directly lead to action in the European Union. The six colours tested require warning labels in Europe stating they ‘may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children’. Sadly, that is not the case in Australia.
The lunchbox data makes this research directly relevant to Australian classrooms. With an average of 10.3 additives per lunchbox arriving at school each day, children are routinely consuming the very substances that peer-reviewed research links to hyperactivity and attention difficulties — in a setting where teachers are expected to manage behaviour, sustain concentration and deliver learning across a full school day. This is not a discipline problem. It is a nutrition and education problem – and the curriculum is currently not equipped to address it.
Classroom management, support staff costs and teacher retention are major issues in rural and remote areas. If food literacy were part of the curriculum, it would not only support our educators, families and children but also directly reduce the stress on our limited health providers and support services.
CASE STUDY – Boarding Schools and Food as Information
Many of our members need to send their children to boarding school due to access and proximity to a secondary school. They move into an institutional food environment, away from family, at the most developmentally significant period of their lives.
This transition is already emotionally and socially demanding. What is rarely considered is that it is also a critical nutritional transition - and that the food environment children enter at boarding school will directly shape their capacity to cope, concentrate, regulate their emotions and perform academically.
What the research tells us about food and mental health is unambiguous.
Peer-reviewed studies from leading journals including The Lancet, JAMA and BMJ consistently show that diet quality directly shapes mental health outcomes in young people. The following graphic has been extracted from the Position Paper, Thriving Students: The Missing Foundation in Mental Health, Behaviour and Learning, written by Bel Smith, Children’s Health Advocate and Food Literacy Strategist.
Poor nutrition does not simply affect physical energy - it directly undermines the biological capacity to manage stress, regulate emotions, sustain attention and form positive relationships. A child navigating homesickness, peer pressure, academic stress and independence for the first time needs nutritional support.
If children had a greater understanding of food and how it is information for your brain and overall well-being, this would enable them to make informed choices. Combine this with boarding schools being uniquely positioned to ensure students are provided nourishing food and the education around food as information, then we have the most powerful lever to address many challenges faced in the classroom and in rural and remote communities.
