Despite longstanding national cooperation on nutrition (since the days of the National Better Health Program in the late 1980s), and even more recent national cooperation on physical activity, public and political imagination was not captured until the same issues were recast as 'obesity', with a focus in particular on childhood obesity. Following from the NSW Childhood Obesity Summit in late 2002, the Australian Health Ministers agreed that a national approach was required and established a National Obesity Taskforce [12] .