Most New Zealanders don’t eat recommended 5+ a day

Thursday, 27 February 2014, 3:51 pm
Press Release: Roy Morgan Research

Give peas a chance: most New Zealanders don’t eat recommended 5+ fruit and vegetables a day

Almost 3 in 4 New Zealanders don’t eat the recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables, the latest data from Roy Morgan Research shows—but we’re still doing better than Australians.

Around 1 in 3 NZ women and 1 in 5 NZ men eat three or more serves of vegetables and two or more serves of fruit each day, the amount recommended by the Ministry of Health and promoted by the ‘5+ A Day’ campaign since 2007.

Over half of us succeed with the 2+ fruits, but vegetables are clearly more of a struggle with just 36% of Kiwis eating 3+ serves a day. However, another 27% eat two serves of vegetables—just one more carrot and you’re there!

Men especially need to boost up their vegetable intake, with women over 50% more likely to meet the 3+ target.

Proportion of Kiwis (and Australians) with the right daily fruit and vegetable intake:

Click for big version.

Sources: Roy Morgan Single Source (New Zealand), July 2013 – December 2013, n= 6142 New Zealanders 14+; Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), July 2013 – December 2013, n= 8985 Australians 14+

Just 6% of New Zealanders say they eat less than one serve of vegetables (including none), while 14% eat less than one serve of fruit or none in a day.

Across the Tasman, average fruit and vegetable intake is well behind New Zealand, with just 1 in 5 Australians eating the right amount of both. 70% of Australians don’t eat enough vegetables, and 58% don’t eat enough fruit.

Pip Elliott, General Manager, Roy Morgan Research NZ, says:

“Although the vast majority of us eat at least some fruit and vegetables every day, only around 1 in 4 New Zealanders manage to meet the Ministry of Health’s intake recommendations.

“Eating the right amount of healthy produce need not be a chore. People who enjoy food from all over the world, who like to try new foods, or who find the time and enjoy cooking are all more likely than average to eat 3+ serves of veggies and 2+ of fruit each day."

Roy Morgan Research
Roy Morgan Research is Australia’s best known and longest established market research and public opinion survey company. Roy Morgan Single Source is thorough, accurate, and provides comprehensive, directly applicable information about current and future customers. It is unique in that it directs all the questions to each individual from a base survey sample of around 55,000 interviews in Australia and 15,000 interviews in New Zealand annually - the largest Single Source databases in the world. The questions asked relate to lifestyle and attitudes, media consumption habits (including TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, cinema, catalogues, pay TV and the Internet), brand and product usage, purchase intentions, retail visitations, service provider preferences, financial information and recreation and leisure activities. This lead product is supported by a nationally networked, consultancy-orientated market research capability.

www.roymorgan.com

ENDS

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Roy Morgan Research

New Zealand's leading social and market research company

A full service research organisation specialising in omnibus and syndicated data, Roy Morgan Research has over 70 years' experience in collecting objective, independent information on consumers. Roy Morgan Research was set up in New Zealand in the 1990s and has been collecting information across a wide range of industries in New Zealand ever since. Roy Morgan currently has over 10 years of trended data on a geographically and demographically representative sample of over 12,000 New Zealanders aged 14+.

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