Not so Healthy After All!
The CSIRO recently released a report, detailing the diet score of more than 86,000 Australians, with some concerning results; Australia’s score in general was only 59 out of 100 points, or a ‘C’ on the report card. Whilst obese people scored worse than healthy weight people, with 56 and 61 points respectively, a score of 61 does still has room for improvement for those who may consider a healthy weight to be indicative of overall good health. This shows that maybe we are not as healthy as we think we are and highlights the need for regular health assessments, to ensure you keep your health on track.
The key area where room for improvement was shown is around discretionary foods. The average Australian female consumes 17.1 serves of discretionary foods, the average male consumes 23.9 serves. What are ‘discretionary foods’ though?
As can be seen from the infographic, discretionary foods includes alcohol, soft drinks, cakes, biscuits, chips, icecream, chocolate, muesli and snack bars, and other take away foods.
Figure 1: Weekly serves of discretionary foods for average Australian woman
Source: https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/diet-score/diet-score-results/
Figure 2: Weekly serves of discretionary foods for average Australian man
Source: https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/diet-score/diet-score-results/
Australians under 50 reported consumption of more discretionary foods than older Australians (19.7 vs. 17.6 serves per week). Except for 18-30 year olds, alcohol is the greatest contributor to total intake for all age groups. For 18-30 year olds, chocolate and confectionary was the greatest contributor to total food intake, followed by alcohol. Sugar sweetened beverages were consumed more by those under 50 than those over 50. Alcohol made up more of the discretionary foods intake for those over 50 than for other groups.
So what are the key learnings from the survey results? Find out here
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