KEY POINTS:
Blokes just won't eat their vegetables, although fruit is increasingly attractive to both sexes, the latest national health survey suggests.
The 2006/07 survey of more than 17,000 people has found encouraging trends on obesity, with the children's rate being no higher than in the previous survey and the increase in the adult rate at last slowing.
But obesity experts and campaigners are concerned by a number of findings in the 362-page Health Ministry report released yesterday, including the levels of fizzy-drink and fast-food consumption by children, and that adults eat only two-thirds of the recommended three daily servings of vegetables and two of fruit.
The proportion of men eating enough vegetables, already lower than for women, declined by 7.3 percentage points, to 56 per cent, from the last survey in 2002/3. But those eating enough fruit rose from 34.5 per cent of men in 1996/7, to 49.5 per cent.
Obesity Action Coalition director Leigh Sturgiss said it was easier and often cheaper to buy foods high in fat, salt and sugar, than healthy foods such as fruit or vegetables.
"People should have access to healthy foods regardless of their income."
Diabetes specialist Dr Brandon Orr-Walker, of the Counties Manukau District Health Board, said vegetables were perceived as boring, expensive (at least in supermarkets), and people did not know how to prepare them.
"It's part of the almost de-skilling that's occurred in food preparation when a lot of food is now pre-prepared or takeaway."
Health Minister David Cunliffe, after highlighting the report's positive findings, noted it indicated New Zealanders would benefit if they did undertook more physical activity, ate more fruit and vegetables and gave higher priority to being smokefree.
"Of real concern is the persistence of large, underlying health disparities for Maori and Pacific peoples compared with everyone else in New Zealand, and also for those people living in high areas of deprivation."
But he said the survey showed most New Zealanders were in good health, had excellent access to health-care services and were overwhelmingly positive about their dealings with health practitioners.
The survey gathered information from 12,488 adults and 4922 children. It follows three similar surveys done since 1992/3, although the latest exercise has a larger sample, includes children and covers many more topics, even extending to "family cohesion".
