No abstract

Advancing food and nutrition public policy in Australia is essential to halt the increasing prevalence of obesity and associated non-communicable diseases. Developing policy in this space however, is often contentious due to the entrenched views of stakeholders from a variety of interest groups. The aim of this research was to explore where the views of stakeholders are convergent and divergent on the issue, analyse the strategies used by stakeholders to influence the development of public policy, and ultimately, make recommendations to optimise the development of food and nutrition public policies. Structured interviews were undertaken with a purposeful sample of 76 stakeholders who were categorised into the following interest groups: government, public health sector, consumer groups, food and beverage industry, and academia. Interviewees were asked about their views on 1) food and nutrition public policy; 2) a variety of policy principles e.g. collaboration and transparency; and, 3) strategies to influence policy e.g. advocacy. Following transcription, the interviews were analysed using a combination of computational linguistics analysis, content analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics, and thematic analysis.