Healthy Families South Auckland has released Turou Hawaiki, a report which reflects on our work and what has been learned over the years. It highlights the conditions required for prevention to succeed, the importance of trust and relationships, and the role of local systems in enabling long‑term change.
We are pleased to share the foreword written by Boyd Swinburn, Professor of Population Nutrition and Global Health at the University of Auckland and Co-Chair of Health Coalition Aotearoa.
Back in 2012, I was heavily involved with Australia’s Healthy Together Victoria, a pioneering large-scale, systems-oriented intervention designed to improve child nutrition and obesity prevalence rates.
While a fledgling project, it was an ambitious attempt to tackle chronic disease using a whole-of-system approach rather than just individual behaviour change.
That is why I am enthused to be re‑engaging with the Healthy Families South Auckland kaupapa through Auckland Council.
While Healthy Together Victoria was ultimately hamstrung by short‑term funding, it lasted long enough for its core ideas to leap across the Tasman.
In 2014, Healthy Families New Zealand was launched in 10 locations across Aotearoa. More than a decade later it is deeply heartening to see the kaupapa not only still standing, but evolving.
It is especially encouraging that Health Coalition Aotearoa, an organisation I am proud to be involved with, is now working alongside Auckland Council’s Healthy Families South Auckland.
As shown in this report, the collaborative efforts between Auckland Council, Health Coalition Aotearoa, Moana Connect, Toi Tangata, and the University of Auckland are grappling seriously with the structural challenges shaping South Auckland’s food environments.
The statistics are confronting. Forty‑two percent of children in South Auckland live in households where food often or mostly runs out because there is not enough money. This is not an unemployment problem as joblessness sits at around five percent. Nor is it a food problem since Aotearoa produces enough food to feed eight times its population.
This is an economic system failure, which is the responsibility of the central government, and a food system problem which demands action from both the central and local government.
What gives me hope is what we hear directly from South Auckland communities.
Despite neighbourhoods saturated with ultra‑processed food outlets, we see extraordinary local innovation, resilience, and determination to feed whānau well. The challenge ahead for community, government and organisations like Healthy Families South Auckland, is to remove barriers and provide practical support where it can.
Nourishing our children is foundational to a flourishing Aotearoa. That is why continuity of funding is critical.
Long‑term systems change requires patience, persistence and political courage.
Re‑orienting institutions, policies and mindsets is slow but it is work worth doing if we want to help improve the health of our people.