The Conversation – Matthew McLaughlin, Alison Brown, Jannah Jones, Luke Wolfenden, and Rachel Sutherland
Four in five primary school students eat a packed lunch every day, costing parents around A$20 a week. That’s almost 10 million lunchboxes across Australia every week. But nine in ten of these contain so-called “discretionary foods” such as cake, chips, muesli bars and fruit juice. These foods are not necessary for a healthy diet, and are often high in saturated fat, sugar and salt, and low in fibre. 40% of energy in an average lunchbox comes from these discretionary foods.