Rising cost of living pressures may push parents towards party pies rather than healthy options for their children's meals, a Queensland backbencher says.
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Labor member for Maryborough Bruce Saunders said cost of living was "going through the roof".
"It's easy to go and buy 100 party pies for $20 and feed your children if you've got a fair swag of kids, a large family," he said.
Mr Saunders was speaking as a member of a parliamentary committee examining plans to introduce a new health promotion agency, questioning Queensland Health bureaucrats.
He asked whether the department would be liaising with supermarkets on the issue.
"Every time you pick a catalogue up all the junk food, full of sugar and full of salt and everything is at a very special price," he said.
"But if you want to buy go and buy good food, nourishing food for your family, it's exorbitant prices."
Brisbane Times checked the maths.
Four 24-packs of Coles-branded frozen party pies costs $19.20.
The cost for the equivalent weight of Granny Smith apples, or 4.42 kilograms, would be $26.05, although it is unlikely a family would decide to eat a few bags of apples for dinner.
Queensland Health director-general Michael Walsh said the short answer was "yes".
Mr Walsh said the new health agency, to be called Health and Wellbeing Queensland, would provide a greater ability for similar feedback to be given directly to Health Minister Steven Miles, rather than through the department.
He said the agency would work with communities to receive feedback, including about pester power from children reading junk mail catalogues, and could also work with supermarkets.
Chief health officer Jeannette Young said the percentage of adults and children who were overweight or obese had not changed in years.
"Here in Queensland, we haven't seen an increase in the percentage of overweight or obese children since 2007 - we haven't seen a decrease but we've seen a levelling of that after a significant increase over the preceding years," she said.
"We haven't seen an increase in Queensland since 2011 in the percentage of adults who are overweight or obese."
The latest 2018 Chief Health Officer report found 2.5 million Queensland adults and 224,000 Queensland children were overweight or obese.
Mr Walsh said the "overwhelming majority" of the agency's more than $30 million budget would be distributed to non-government organisations in grants.
He said the agency, which could be created as early as July, would have about 20 staff, including some who would move over from Queensland Health.
Introducing a bill to create the agency last month, Mr Miles said society was to blame for making Queenslanders fat.
