Health Targets

Improving Nutrition, Increasing Physical Activity and Reducing Obesity

What is the target?

Proportion of infants exclusively and fully breastfed: 74% at six weeks; 57 % at three months; 27 % at six months
Proportion of adults (15+ years) consuming the recommended three or more servings of vegetables and two or more servings of fruit per day: 70% for vegetable consumption; 62% for fruit consumption.

Why is this target important?

Good nutrition, physical activity and maintaining a healthy body weight are fundamental to health and the prevention of disease and disability at all ages.

Increasing breastfeeding of infants to: 74% at six weeks; 57 % at three months; 27 % at six months
70% of adults eating the recommended three or more servings of vegetables
62% of adults eating the recommended two or more servings of fruit per day

What progress has been made in 2007/08?

This is the first time information about these targets has been captured, collated and compared in this way – an emphasis over 2008/09 will be the capture of information to measure progress against the following data collected:

65% exclusive and fully breastfed infants at six weeks, 54% at three months, and 26% at six months
Two out of every three adults ate three or more servings of vegetables each day
Two out of every three adults ate two or more servings of fruit each day

View more information on progress in 2007/08, including graphs, on the Improving Nutrition, Increasing Physical Activity and Reducing Obesity Quarterly Reports page.

Specific information on each DHB's progress towards their local targets is provided on their individual pages. You can access them on the Targets by DHB page.

What has helped these achievements?

During 2007/08 the Ministry has progressed national social marketing campaigns and working with District Health Boards to implement local Healthy Eating Healthy Action activities including:

The breastfeeding social marketing campaign targeting Māori and Pacific families.
Further development of information systems to capture national breastfeeding data from Plunket and other Well Child Providers.
Funding DHBs to develop and implement district breastfeeding plans and district community action plans with a focus on nutrition in high-need populations.
Exploring the possibility of accessing point of sale data for vegetable and fruit to supplement the New Zealand Health Survey.
The implementation of ‘Feeding our Futures’, a healthy eating social marketing campaign run by the Health Sponsorship Council on behalf of the HEHA Project team.

Who is the Ministry of Health champion of this target?

To be appointed

Related information

In this section:
Targets by DHB
Nutrition, Increasing Physical Activity and Reducing Obesity Success Story

In other sections on this website:
Healthy Eating Healthy Action
Nutrition
Breastfeeding
Health & Disability Intelligence
Obesity
Physical activity

Page last updated: 12 October 2008