Kiwis inactive as well as flightless
Half of Kiwis getting less than 2.5 hours’ physical activity a week and many are not eating enough fruit and veges, a new report shows.
Michael Ritchie has spent 30 years behind the wheel, but not long ago he realised it was time for a change of lifestyle. Now the Cambridge-based truckie is parking further away from the smoko room, and has cut most of the sugar from his diet. Ritchie is bucking a trend highlighted in a new Health Ministry report: Kiwis are not getting enough exercise, and are failing to eat sufficient quantities of fruit and vegetables. The New Zealand Health Survey shows big differences in the eating and exercising habits of various regions, with the South Island’s West Coast proving the most exercise-conscious, and Nelson/ Marlborough the region with the best diet. Sixty-five per cent of the 582 Coasters surveyed hit the exercise mark – 2.5 hours of activity a week. The second most active area is the Southern DHB region, including Dunedin, Invercargill, and Queenstown, where 64 per cent of 2869 respondents reported meeting their exercise quota. The report bundles three years of health survey results, totalling 40,900 responses from 2014 to 2017. The surveys are pooled with previous years to give a bigger sample size at a regional level. Things are not so rosy in the Hawke’s Bay, where just 38 per cent of 2302 respondents met the exercise target, a figure Hawke’s Bay District Health Board (DHB) clinical director for population health Nick Jones describes as concerning and puzzling. ‘‘Exercise is not just around weight control. More importantly, it has a lot of health benefits for the human body, in terms of your heart health, respiratory, but also mental health,’’ Jones says. ‘‘Even things like cancer risk can be impacted.’’ Hawke’s Bay is car-dependent, with lots of commuting between Napier and Hastings, Jones says, but more people are using public transport and cycleways. On the diet side, about 60 per cent of Kiwis eat less than the recommended servings of fruit and vegetables. Men fare worse than women, and Ma¯ori, Pacific and Asian adults worse than others. The Nelson Marlborough region tops the list of healthy eating with 47 per cent of the 1713 respondents eating to ministry guidelines – at least three servings of vegetables and two of fruit a day. Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese wants to improve on that, and is challenging other mayors to do the same. Nelson does have the best apples, she says, and community gardens, a fruit-growing climate and a local food rescue scheme could all help. In Counties Manukau, just under a third of the 3525 respondents get the recommended helpings of fruit and veg. Health inequities mean differences in DHB populations can have a bearing on the statistics, Counties Manukau Health public health physician Pip Anderson says. Healthy nutrition is a complex issue, she says, and multi-prong approaches are needed. In Counties Manukau, the biggest investment in healthy eating is the Healthy Families programme, which uses local partnerships to create change. Ritchie, who resides in a region where half of survey respondents registered enough exercise, is praising the Green Prescription – a GPmanaged physical activity programme. About 7000 Waikato people get a Green Prescription each year and 54,000 schoolkids learn healthy habits through Project Energise. After working with Sport Waikato, Ritchie started using spare moments to do loops of his truck, hitting the outdoor gym equipment at Cambridge’s Te Koutu Lake, and bought a magnifying glass to read tiny food nutrition labels. About six months have passed since the Cambridge truck driver’s doctor gave him the Green Prescription – matching him with a support person to get him more active. Ritchie has lost inches around his waist, gained energy, and plans to buy a bike. ‘‘Some of my mates have seen a big weight loss in me,’’ he says.