NewIdea
  • Royals
  • Celebrity
  • News
  • Beauty & Style
  • Health & Wellbeing
  • Food
  • Win
  • Recipes
  • Video
NewIdea
  • Royals
  • Celebrity
  • News
  • Beauty & Style
  • Health & Wellbeing
  • Food
  • Win
  • Recipes
  • Video
Subscribe
  1. Home
  2. Health & Wellbeing

Inside Australia's Obesity Epidemic

Around five million Australians are dangerously overweight - and it's bad news for the whole country - by New Idea
  • 09 Dec 2019

In early 2016, after Biggest Loser trainer Michelle Bridges said she had “never met a happy, morbidly obese person,” her former colleague Ajay Rochester got angry.

Rochester, who once hosted Biggest Loser, shared a cheeky snap of her bum on Instagram (with a drawn-on face) and invited Bridges to “kiss my fat happy ass.”

Inside Australia's Obesity Epidemic

Rochester’s beef was that Bridges was equating being overweight with unhappiness and being "different". If so, then Bridges is talking about a lot of Australians.

Ajay Rochester

Ajay Rochester

Getty Images

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a whopping two-thirds of Australian adults (12.5 million people) are overweight.

The ABS's National Health Survey of 2017-18 found that of those people who were overweight, a staggering five million are obese.

A greater proportion of men (74 per cent) are overweight or obese than women (59 per cent) according to the 2016 Australian census.

And one quarter of all Australian children (aged 5-17) were overweight or obese.

Fries
Getty Images

Being obese means that your Body Mass Index (calculated using your weight and height) is 30.0 kg/m2 or more. To be overweight your BMI is between 25 and 29.9.

You can calculate your BMI at the Heart Foundation.

As Ajay notes, being obese or overweight might not necessarily make you unhappy, but regardless of the way a person looks or their attitude toward their own bodies, obesity is extremely dangerous to a person's health.

Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes and some cancers.

What's more, if you have any of these conditions, being obese hampers your ability to combat and manage the affliction.

Obesity
Getty Images

The most obese Australian state, according to the 2016 Australian census, is South Australia, where 65 per cent of people are overweight or obese.

Sports-mad Victoria has the lightest Australians, but it still comes in alarmingly high at 63.3 per cent.

People living in remote areas are more likely to be obese than city dwellers.

Overweight
Getty Images

Most shockingly, the stats reveal that more Australians are getting fatter.

In 1995, 19 per cent of Australians were obese. Now it is a third of all adult Australians.
And many are going to extreme lengths to combat their predicament. In 2015, 22,700 people went under the knife for weight loss surgery.

So how are we combating our national weight gain? Not very well according to the Collective For Action on Obesity. The group says that no effective and enduring action has been implemented to fight obesity in the country.

“As a result, Australia has gone backward at an alarming rate,” said the group in a statement.

Obese
Getty Images

ABS projections predict that within the next decade, 40 per cent of Australians will be obese (8.9 million people), which would be more than in the US as it currently stands (36 per cent). The most obese country in the world is American Samoa with 74 per cent of citizens chronically overweight.

Australia is “fast heading down the road the United States has traveled and they have discovered exactly how much it costs in terms of health and taxpayers dollars,” Annette Schmiede, executive leader of Bupa Health Foundation told Fairfax.

Indeed, obesity reportedly costs the economy a staggering $11.8 billion annually.

For help with obesity, go to Health Direct.

Subscribe to New Idea & save!-+ save!

Subscribe to New Idea today

Subscribe Now
Subscribe to New Idea & save!

Subscribe to New Idea & save!-+ save!

Subscribe to New Idea today

Subscribe Now
Subscribe to New Idea & save!

Recommended to you

Home and Away opening title
Watch 1:09

Home and Away opening title

{headline}

{headline}

The Voice star's harrowing health battle

The Voice star's harrowing health battle

Groom fat shames bride during wedding announcement

Groom fat shames bride during wedding announcement

I’m a size 22 and I’m fitter than my skinny friends

Olivia Newton John to make health 'announcement' on Sunday Night

{headline}

{headline}

Strangers send terminally ill boy 300 birthday cards in beautiful gesture

Johnny Ruffo: 'I was hours from death'

Australian golfer Jarrod Lyle decides to stop cancer treatment to spend last days with wife and daughters

{headline}

{headline}

Masterchef 'fat-shaming' scandal explodes

Barry Du Bois: 'I’m not ready to die'

Breast cancer survivor’s warning to women: ‘One mammogram can save your life’

'My 600-Lb Life' star Robert Buchel dies during filming

Barbra Streisand’s amputation horror

Strangers vow to give terminally ill 31-year-old wedding of her dreams before she dies

The unexpected benefits of fibre

The unexpected benefits of fibre

NewIdea
  • About Us
  • Subscribe Today
  • Contact Us
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Competitions
NewIdea Magazine Subscribe
  • About Us
  • Subscribe Today
  • Contact Us
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Competitions

Brands

  • Girlfriend
  • New Idea food
  • Practical Parenting
  • That’s Life
  • Who

Our Network

  • Better Homes and Gardens
  • BHG Shop
  • marie claire
  • Beauty Crew
  • Women's Weekly Food
  • Bounty Parents
  • Home Beautiful
  • All Recipes
  • Perth Now
  • The West Australian
  • 7Plus
  • 7mate
  • 7NEWS
  • 7Sport
  • Sunrise
  • Starts at 60
  • Hard to Find
© 2022 Are Media PTY LTD
All products are independently selected, tested or recommended by our team of experts.If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Get more from New Idea

Magazine Subscription Offer

Subscribe to New Idea & save!-+ save!

Shop This Offer
Subscribe to New Idea & save!