An article in the Sydney Morning Herald on November 22 makes disappointing reading for any health professional trying to encourage us to adopt healthy eating habits.
According to IRI-Aztec, Australians spent $2.47 billion on confectionery, up 5.4 per cent on the previous year. $7.4 billion was spent on packaged cigarettes. A further $2 billion was spent on soft drinks, $1.8 billion on fresh milk and $1.56 billion on biscuits last financial year. For the first time Australians spent more than $1 billion on snacking chips, up 6.4 per cent.
Consumers spent almost three times as much on ice cream ($1.1 billion) as on health foods ($418 million) at supermarkets.
Despite the huge growth in junk food sales, the three biggest suppliers to Australian supermarkets are British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco Australia, which provide a combined $8.4 billion of annual revenue.
When cigarette sales are stripped out, seven of the top 10 branded products sold in Australia are different package sizes of Coca-Cola, the most popular being a 24-can “slab” of Coke, followed in second place by a 30-can package.
The top four branded food products are all Coca-Cola, followed by Nescafe instant coffee at fifth. Quilton toilet paper is sixth and a 24-can slab of Pepsi Max seventh on the top 10 list.
As someone who has published one book on Healthy living for over 50s and spent the last 10 years looking at the issues that can make people either happy or unhappy in retirement, it’s unbelievable that we can be so stupid in our eating habits. There is now overwhelming evidence that junk food, cigarettes and a lack of exercise will lead us to obesity, heart disease, diabetes and a poor quality of life in our retirement years. These statistics indicate that healthy food, including fruit and vegetables are pretty low on a lot of peoples’ priority list. A shopping list made up largely of nicotine, sugar and stimulants is not going to produce too many fit and healthy 60 year olds.
To be optimistic in the face of this depressing news, it is still possible for people thinking about some form of retirement to improve their chances of enjoying good health in their 50s, 60s and 70s if they adopt a healthy diet, do regular exercise and have a positive mental attitude.
If you would like to read this Sydney Morning Herald article in full, the web address is –
