December 8, 2016
A healthy country lifestyle? A new report shows that Australians living in regional areas are more likely to be overweight or obese than their city cousins.
And a second report shows a similar pattern in relation to tobacco smoking, with adults in regional areas more likely to smoke daily than their city counterparts.
The reports examined obesity and smoking rates across Australia’s Primary Health Network (PHN) areas.
PHNs are organisations that connect health services over local geographic areas. The South Burnett is covered by the Darling Downs and West Moreton PHN.
The first report, “Healthy Communities: Overweight and obesity rates across Australia 2014–15”, shows that the highest rate of overweight and obesity in adults was 73 per cent in Country South Australia, while Northern Sydney had the lowest rate at 53 per cent — but still more than half the adult population in that area were overweight or obese.
The second report, “Healthy Communities: Tobacco smoking rates across Australia 2014–15” shows that while daily smoking rates in Australia have continued to fall, they remain relatively high in some PHN areas, particularly regional areas.
Northern Sydney had the lowest rate of daily smoking at around 5 per cent, while Western NSW had the highest rate of 23 per cent.
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Darling Downs and West Moreton PHN figures have actually improved slightly in some statistics, but are still far worse than city areas:
- Overweight 36.2 per cent (up from 34.7 per cent)
- Obese 34.9 per cent (down from 36.9 per cent)
- Overweight and Obese 71.1 per cent (down from 71.6)
- Smoking 16.4 per cent (down from 18.8 per cent)
