Government Makes New Commitment to Healthy Eating Plan
The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden National Program, which is teaching healthy eating habits to primary school aged children all over Australia, will receive a further $5.4 million investment from the Australian Government.
View by date:
Previous MinistersPDF printable version of Government Makes New Commitment to Healthy Eating Plan (PDF 251 KB)
Joint Release
The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP
Minister for Health
Maria VamVakinou MP
Member for Calwell
1 August 2012The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden National Program, which is teaching healthy eating habits to primary school aged children all over Australia, will receive a further $5.4 million investment from the Gillard Government.
This will build on the $12.8 million committed in 2008-09 over four years for the development of the program.
Announcing the three-year funding at Meadows Primary School in Victoria, the Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, said the program would now reach up to 400 new schools, as well as the 170 that had previously participated.
“This is great news for kids all around Australia, who will grow, harvest and prepare fresh food, helping to improve their nutrition as well as developing lifelong healthy eating habits.” Ms Plibersek said.
“Schools which meet certain criteria for disadvantage will be able to apply for grants of up to $10,000 to help with the establishment of kitchen and garden infrastructure and to offset teacher training costs.”
Stephanie Alexander, the founder of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation said she was delighted to be partnering with the Australian Government to support more schools.
“This will educate the next generation of Australian children to enjoy the pleasures of fresh, seasonal food and to develop the skills that contribute to lifelong health,” Ms Alexander said.
Ms Vamvakinou said Meadows Primary had made outstanding progress since first receiving funding under the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program in early 2011 and was a great supporter of the Australian Government’s efforts to promote a healthy lifestyle among the nation’s children.
“We are committed to this because we are concerned at figures that show increasing incidences of overweight and obesity among young people nationwide,” Ms Vamvakinou said.
“Eating habits learnt in childhood tend to set the pattern for adult life. That is why we consider this program to be of great importance in promoting healthy eating. A lifestyle modified now can greatly reduce the risk of chronic disease later on.”
For further information please visit the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden National Program website.
Help with accessing large documents
When accessing large documents (over 500 KB in size), it is recommended that the following procedure be used:
- Click the link with the RIGHT mouse button
- Choose "Save Target As.../Save Link As..." depending on your browser
- Select an appropriate folder on a local drive to place the downloaded file
Attempting to open large documents within the browser window (by left-clicking)
may inhibit your ability to continue browsing while the document is
opening and/or lead to system problems.
Help with accessing PDF documents
To view PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, you will need to have a PDF reader installed on your computer. A number of PDF readers are available through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) Web Guide website.