Changing their perception of what healthy food is and how nice it can be
In the small Victorian town of Kyneton, a nutrition coach named Kate Coleman has spent years watching a quiet crisis unfold inside children's lunch boxes — one crinkly wrapper at a time. Since 2016, her No Packet November campaign has asked Australian families to pause and consider what daily convenience is costing them: in children's health, in ocean plastic, and in the slow erosion of the habit of making things by hand. The campaign, now adapted into an online recipe book for a pandemic-altered world, is less a dietary intervention than a philosophical one — a gentle insistence that the small choices made each morning carry consequences far beyond the school gate.
- A single lunch box containing seven individually wrapped snacks became the image that crystallised years of concern for one nutritionist — and the founding moment of a campaign now in its sixth year.
- Rising rates of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, allergies, and asthma are being linked to the daily normalisation of processed, packaged snacks in Australian schools.
- Plastic packaging is not merely a landfill problem — projections suggest oceans could hold more plastic than fish by 2050, with microplastics already entering the human food chain through seafood.
- Pandemic restrictions closed school doors to in-person workshops, pushing the campaign online and into a free digital recipe book designed to meet families where they are.
- Recipes like no-bake bliss balls are being used not just to improve nutrition, but to shift children's psychological relationship with healthy food — turning sceptics into converts through the act of making something themselves.
Kate Coleman was sitting in a primary school classroom in Kyneton when a child opened her lunch box to reveal seven different packaged snacks — chips, biscuits, chocolate-covered items, fruit straps — each sealed in its own layer of plastic. For Coleman, a nutrition coach, the sight was more than untidy. It was a portrait of a habit that had quietly become routine, and it became the seed of No Packet November, a campaign she has run since 2016 to encourage families to rethink what fills their children's lunch boxes each day.
Coleman is not calling for the elimination of packaged food from children's lives. "Packaged foods every now and again is fine," she says. "It's the world we live in." But the daily accumulation troubles her on two fronts. The first is health: she sees a direct connection between the prevalence of processed snacks and rising rates of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, allergies, and asthma. The second is environmental. She thinks about ocean plastic projections, about marine life absorbing microplastics, and about what happens when that marine life enters the human food chain. The problem, she notes, does not end at the landfill.
In previous years, Coleman brought her message directly into schools through hands-on workshops. Pandemic restrictions made that impossible in 2021, so she pivoted — creating an online recipe book designed to show parents that homemade alternatives are simpler, cheaper, and more appealing than most assume. The recipes require no oven, cost little, and are built to be made with children alongside. Bliss balls — oats, dates, seeds, honey, rolled by small hands and dipped in coconut — are a signature example. Coleman has watched children wrinkle their noses at the sight of them, only to taste one and quietly ask for another. "It's about changing their perception of what healthy food is and how nice it can be," she says.
The broader guidance is practical and unintimidating: check whether sugar appears in the top three ingredients, and if it does, put the packet back. Fill the box instead with veggie sticks, cheese, olives, bulk yoghurt, or something baked at home in a batch. No special equipment is needed, no dramatic overhaul of family life. What is needed, Coleman suggests, is simply a small shift in how the lunch box is understood — not as a container to be filled with whatever is at hand, but as a daily decision about health, environment, and the kind of future being quietly chosen, one morning at a time.
Kate Coleman, a nutrition coach in Kyneton, was sitting in her daughter's primary school classroom one day when she noticed something that troubled her. A child in the class had opened her lunch box to reveal seven different packaged foods—chips, biscuits, chocolate-covered items, fruit straps—each one wrapped in its own layer of plastic. Coleman found herself staring at the accumulation of packaging and thinking about what lay beneath it: processed ingredients, additives, the slow creep of convenience over nourishment. That moment crystallized something she had been sensing for years, and it became the seed of No Packet November, a campaign she has been running since 2016 to persuade families to stop filling lunch boxes with individually wrapped snacks.
The campaign's logic is straightforward but layered. Coleman is not arguing that packaged foods should never appear in a child's diet. "Packaged foods every now and again is fine," she says. "It's the world we live in." But the daily habit of it, the sheer volume of processed snacks that have become routine in Australian school lunches, troubles her on two fronts. The first is health. She sees a direct line between the prevalence of packaged snacks and rising rates of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, allergies, and asthma. The second is environmental. Coleman thinks about the ocean—specifically, the projection that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the water than fish. She imagines her own children on a beach holiday in that future, surrounded by floating packets. She thinks about what happens to marine life, and then what happens when that marine life enters the human food chain as microplastics embedded in the seafood we eat. The problem, in other words, does not end at the landfill.
In previous years, Coleman has taken her message directly into schools, teaching children and families how to make simple snacks at home. But 2021 brought pandemic restrictions that made those in-person visits impossible. Rather than abandon the campaign, she pivoted. She created an online recipe book—a digital toolkit designed to make the case that homemade alternatives are not just better for you and the planet, but easier and cheaper than most parents assume. The recipes she selected are deliberately simple. Most require no oven. All are cheap to make. Many can be prepared with children's hands in the mix, turning the act of making lunch into something collaborative rather than a rushed morning chore.
Take bliss balls, one of her signature recipes. Coleman combines oats, dates, seeds, and honey in a food processor, then invites kids to roll the mixture into balls with their hands and dip them in coconut. She has watched children recoil at the sight of them—"Oh, that's disgusting"—only to taste one and change their minds entirely. "It's about changing their perception of what healthy food is and how nice it can be," she says. The shift is not just nutritional; it is psychological. A child who has made something with her own hands and discovered it tastes good has learned something more durable than any lecture about health could teach.
Coleman's broader advice is equally practical. If sugar appears in the top three ingredients on a package, that is a signal to skip it. Veggie sticks, cheese, olives, homemade muffins and biscuits, bulk Greek yoghurt—these are the building blocks of a lunch box that nourishes without generating mountains of waste. The shift requires no special knowledge, no expensive equipment, no dramatic lifestyle overhaul. It requires only a small reorientation of habit and a willingness to see the lunch box not as a container to be filled with whatever is convenient, but as a choice about what kind of future—for a child's body, for the ocean, for the food chain itself—you are voting for each morning.
Citações Notáveis
Packaged foods every now and again is fine—it's the world we live in. But having them daily in lunch boxes in the amounts we do I feel is leading to poor outcomes such as obesity, diabetes, allergies, and asthma.— Kate Coleman
It's about changing their perception of what healthy food is and how nice it can be.— Kate Coleman
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did you decide to create a cookbook instead of going into schools this year?
The pandemic made it impossible to visit classrooms in person, but I didn't want to abandon the message. A digital recipe book reaches families in their own kitchens, where the actual decision-making happens. That felt more useful than ever.
When you saw that child's lunch box with seven packaged foods, what was your first thought?
Alarm, honestly. Not judgment of the parent—I understand the pressures. But looking at all that packaging and knowing what was inside it, I thought about the cumulative effect. One packaged snack is fine. But this is daily, and it adds up in ways we don't always see until it's too late.
You mention microplastics entering the food chain through seafood. How real is that concern?
It's not hypothetical. We know plastic breaks down into tiny particles in the ocean. Fish and other marine life ingest them. When we eat that seafood, we're ingesting them too. It's a cycle we can actually interrupt by making different choices now.
Why do you think homemade snacks work better than just telling kids to eat healthier?
Because they're involved in making it. A child who has rolled a bliss ball with her own hands and tasted it tastes something different than a child who is simply told it's good for her. She owns it. She understands it.
What's the simplest change a family could make tomorrow?
Swap one packaged snack for veggie sticks and cheese. That's it. One swap. Once you see how easy it is, you start thinking about the next one.
Do you think this campaign can actually move the needle on ocean plastic?
Not by itself. But if enough families reduce their packaging consumption, especially around children's food, the cumulative effect matters. And it starts a conversation. Parents talk to other parents. Kids talk to their friends. Change spreads.