New Medibank and Roy Morgan research shows we’re giving up on being healthy

AUSTRALIANS have given in to bad habits and given up on their desire to lead a healthy life.

The defeatist attitude is driving the nation’s massive overweight and obesity rate and is the reason chronic diseases are on the rise.

While nearly three in four of us aspire to live in good health only one in five expect to actually achieve this goal, a survey of 1500 Australians by health fund Medibank has found.

It comes as new research from Roy Morgan shows even though we’re smoking eight million fewer cigarettes a day, drinking fewer glasses of alcohol and exercising more we’re adding 200g to our waistlines every year.

Almost two in three adults are overweight (61 per cent), carrying a total of 180,000 tonnes of extra weight — a figure that is rising by 5000 tonnes a year.

The overweight Aussie weighs on average 16.5 kilograms too much.

The Roy Morgan survey shows obesity is becoming an age and an income related problem.

The under 25s are much less likely to be overweight and obese than the over 65s while the rich are less likely to be overweight and obese than the poor.

“The top socio-economic group are employed and active and they are getting healthier, fitter and more gorgeous,” says Roy Morgan chief executive officer Michelle Levine.

“It’s younger, poorer people who are really struggling (with their mental health) and that feeds into drugs and employment and poorer people are more likely to be obese,” she said.

Medibank found the major barrier to living a healthy life is lack of motivation to exercise, cited by 64 per cent or survey respondents.

Lack of time is the other reason Australians were giving up trying to lead a more healthy life.

Medibank’s national medical director Dr Ian Boyd described the finding as “alarming” given that 80 per cent of lifestyle diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancers can be prevented but people won’t take simple steps to prevent them.

Achieving good health is as simple as incorporating incidental exercise into your day by using the stairs, parking further away, incorporating fruit and vegetables into every meal and setting small achievable exercise goals, he said.

Melbourne mother of three Renee Byrne said after her third child she looked at herself in the mirror and didn’t like what she saw so she joined a group with a personal trainer.

Three years later she’s lost 30 kilograms, goes to the gym three times a week and runs in 15 kilometre fun runs.

“When I started I couldn’t jog 100 metres but I built the intensity up and now I can run 15 kilometres,” she says.

Bake IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute expert John Dixon says he can understand why obese people are giving in and giving up because most have seriously dieted but found their body defends its weight and the fat creeps back.

“We don’t understand diet enough and if you put all the experts in a room they’d disagree on what the best diet is,” he says.

The nation’s weight problem is being driven by the amount of time we spend on screens, shrinking incidental exercise, air conditioning (which means our bodies don’t have to expend energy on heating and cooling), insufficient sleep and eating large amounts late in the day.

We need more work on the science of energy regulation, the bugs in our guts that could be controlling obesity and pills to suppress appetite as well as better funding of bariatric surgery, he said.

The Roy Morgan survey of 500,000 people found there has been dramatic and consistent drop in smoking after large excise increases and the fall continued after the introduction of plain packaging in 2012.

The number of Australians smoking cigarettes has plunged from 18.9 per cent in 2008 to 15.2 per cent and those still smoking are smoking two fewer cigarettes a day.

Sixty per cent of Australians drink alcohol each week, down from 63.6 per cent in 2008 and we’re drinking on average one less glass a week.

The survey found 48.5 per cent of Australians now do some formal exercise such as attending a gym, aerobics, running and cycling, up from 45.4 per cent in 2008.

We’re eating less fast food and fewer luxuries like sweets and chocolate but only four per cent of us are eating the recommended two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables a day.

Source: NewsComAu