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Printed 11/26/2009 09:43:47 AM
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Healthy Eating - Healthy Action
Oranga Kai - Oranga Pumau
Why is nutrition, physical activity and obesity important?
Two out of every five deaths each year (approximately 11,000 annually) are due to nutrition-related risk factors such as:
high cholesterol (reflecting mainly saturated fat intake)
high blood pressure (reflecting a range of factors most notably high sodium intake)
overweight and obesity
inadequate vegetable and fruit intake.
Of these 11,000 deaths a year, 8000 to 9000 are likely to be due to dietary factors alone, and the remaining 2000 to 3000 due to sub-optimal physical activity levels.
The joint effects of diet (includes cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI and vegetable and fruit consumption) rank first among the top 20 causes of death by risk factor. Insufficient physical activity is also in the top 10 (Nutrition and the Burden of Disease).
Obesity is more prevalent in Māori and Pacific communities than other New Zealand groups.
Important facts
The following information is from the publication,
A Portrait of Health: Key results of the 2006/07 New Zealand Health Survey
.
Nine out of ten (87.8%) children aged from birth to 14 years have ever been breastfed.
Nine out of ten (87.8%) children aged 2-14 years ate breakfast at home every day in the past 7 days.
Two out of three (63.6%) children had fizzy drink in the past 7 days. One in five (19.6%) children had three or more fizzy drinks in the past seven days.
Seven out of ten (70.9%) children ate fast food in past seven days. One in seven (13.6%) ate fast food twice in past seven days and one in 14 (7.2%) had eaten fast food three or more times in past seven days.
Two out of three (64.1%) children aged 5-14 years usually watched two or more hours of television a day. This equates to 368,700 children.
Two out of every three adults (64.1%) ate the recommended three or more servings of vegetables each day, and two out of three adults (60.0%) ate the recommended two or more servings of fruit a day.
One in seven adults (13.6%) reported that they were currently taking medication for high blood pressure. This equates to 425,500 adults.
One in 12 adults (8.4%) were currently taking medication for high blood cholesterol.
One in 20 adults (5.2%) had been diagnosed with ischaemic heart disease.
The prevalence of diabetes in children was 0.2% which means that approximately 1700 children had been diagnosed with diabetes by a doctor (most probably type 1).
One in 20 adults (5.0%) had doctor-diagnosed diabetes (excluding diabetes during pregnancy). This equates to 157,100 adults. Nine out of every ten adults with diabetes were diagnosed when they were 25 years or older, and almost all will have type 2 diabetes.
After adjusting for age, Pacific men and women had three times the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes than men and women in the total population.
Just under half of children (47.0%) aged 5-14 years usually use active transport to get to and from school (walking, biking, skating or using other forms of physical activity). Common reasons given by parents for what stops their children walking, biking or skating to school – live too far from school, busy traffic/main road, too dangerous for reasons other than traffic, takes too long.
Half of all adults (50.5%) met the definition of being regularly physically active. Overall one in seven (15.0%) adults were sedentary, reporting less than 30 minutes of physical activity in the previous week.
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