How Obesogenic is my City?

How Obesogenic is my City? - Auckland gets a mixed score card

Source: Auckland Regional Public Health Service

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An Auckland coalition set up to reduce obesity, increase physical activity and improve nutrition has found mixed results in its first analysis of the city’s environment.

Healthy Auckland Together has looked at 16 indicators of healthy behaviours or supportive infrastructure, and found positive gains in nine areas in its first monitoring report, released today.

Spokesman Dr Michael Hale says the best news was a small but significant decrease in the proportion of Maori and Pacific Island boys who were obese at their before-school health check in 2014, compared with 2012.

The obesity rates for the under-fives have remained stable for other ethnicities in the region, but the proportion of Pacific Island children who were obese reduced by 2.5 percentage points for boys and girls by 1.4 percentage points, while for Maori boys, the prevalence of obesity reduced by 2.5 percentage points.

These sound like small percentage changes, but as a proportion of the total, they are important - a relative decline of 14 percent in obesity for Pacific boys from 17.25 percent to 14.75 percent, Dr Hale says.

"We need more information to be able to say definitively why this trend is occurring. It may be because of early childhood policies, awareness around sugar, improved prenatal care or many other causes. However it does reflect the same stabilisation in obesity rates seen in other developed countries," he says.

The drop in the percentage of obese children in the Pacific community has been offset by a rise in the percentage of overweight children, so there’s been little change in the 57 to 58 percent of Pacific children who are of normal weight.

"Unfortunately we still have an intractable health crisis with over two thirds of Auckland adults and a third of children overweight or obese," Dr Hale says.

The report has found mixed success when looking at other key measures, with a significant rise in public transport patronage, which usually increases walking to and from the bus or train.

And there has been a small upswing in cycling and walking to work, but it will take an investment in infrastructure and a larger critical mass of people on the streets before this will impact on broader physical activity levels in Auckland, he says.

"If the Auckland urban environment was a patient, it would be in first signs of recovery, but still a way to go before it’s healthy," says Dr Hale.

The food environment is still wretched for many Aucklanders, with a saturation of cheap, low quality food, and fewer healthier choices in some suburbs, he says. This is reflected in the deteriorating diets of poorer families with an increase in fast food meals eaten a week.

Other indicators show that:

- There’s been a reduction in fruit and in vegetable intake for adults in the region

- The number of filled, missing and decayed primary teeth in children remains high, especially for Pacific Island and Maori children

- There’s been a drop off in the number of adults who report they are active for 150 minutes a week

- A small increase in people actually walking or biking to work

- Consistent growth in the patronage of public transport, up to 8.4 percent

- There is an average of 2.5 fast food premises within 10 minutes’ walk of a primary, intermediate or secondary school

- There are distinct concentrations of fast food outlets within poorer communities. Around 95 percent of people in the poorest areas have more fast food outlets than supermarkets or fruit and vegetable grocers within a 10 minute drive.

Included in the baseline report is new data showing which suburbs had the best layout and most destinations to encourage walking. While the CBD and the inner city fringes were most walkable, we will need to collaborate to improve infrastructure and safety in lower rating suburbs, says Dr Hale.

Healthy Auckland Together has a five year plan to improve the city’s food, urban, school, work and transport environments as these all contribute to Aucklanders’ health.

The monitoring report is available at http://www.healthyaucklandtogether.org.nz/reports/

Healthy Auckland Together is a coalition which includes Auckland Regional Public Health Service, Auckland Council, Auckland Transport, the Ministry of Health, the three District Health Boards, the Heart Foundation, University of Auckland’s School of Population Health, Iwi, Healthy Families New Zealand, primary health organisations and other NGO and consumer groups.

ENDS

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