The Food, Eating and Wellbeing (FEW) Project is a national initiative led by the Australian Eating Disorder Research and Translation Centre (AEDRTC), funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. The project focuses on developing shared, culturally grounded language and definitions around food, eating, and wellbeing within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, ensuring research, policy, and practice reflect community priorities, cultural frameworks, and lived experience.

The FEW Project is guided by a Project Advisory and Governance Group (PAGG) with strong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership, and all community-based research is co-led with First Nations organisations and partner communities, ensuring culturally safe and locally relevant approaches. The project recognises that food, eating, and wellbeing are holistic and interconnected, shaped by culture, community, connection to Country, and broader social and structural factors.

The project is delivered in two phases. Phase 1: Exploring Community Perspectives engages multiple partner communities across urban, regional, remote, very remote, and Torres Strait contexts to understand how food and eating issues are experienced, prioritised, and perceived. This phase includes project initiation, ethics approval, community engagement, qualitative research, and analysis of findings. Phase 2: Translating Insights into Action develops actionable outputs from the engagement findings, including culturally appropriate definitions and frameworks, language guides for researchers, clinicians, and communities, health professional guidance, policy advice, knowledge translation materials, and presentations back to communities.

Key outputs include culturally grounded definitions, language guides, and policy-relevant resources that support research, policy, and service delivery. By establishing shared language and culturally safe frameworks, the FEW Project strengthens Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led research, promotes community-led approaches, and ensures research and practice are guided by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge, priorities, and perspectives.