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Trends: Adults

Diet and physical activity in Australian adults

Last updated 24-11-2023

Very few Australian adults are meeting guidelines for the recommended daily intake of fruit and vegetables. A high proportion of Australian total daily energy intake comes from discretionary (unhealthy) food and drinks. Just 28% of Australian adults are meeting guidelines for physical activity.

Key Evidence

01

91.3% of Australian adults are not consuming the recommended daily intake of vegetables

02

59.5% of 19 to 30-year-olds exceed World Health Organization recommended limits on energy from free sugars

03

42.2% of 18 to 24-year-old men consume sugar-sweetened beverages at least weekly

04

28% of Australian adults reported physical activity levels that met the Australian recommendations

Intake of core foods

Fruit and vegetable intake

In 2020–21, 55.2% of Australians aged 18 years and over did not meet the guidelines for recommended daily serves of fruit, while 91.3% did not meet the guidelines for recommended daily serves of vegetables. The overwhelming majority of adults (95.9%) failed to meet both guidelines.1 This means that less than 5% of Australian adults have diets that are consistent with fruit and vegetable recommendations.

Fruit and vegetable intake

Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey 2020-21. Consumption of fruit, vegetables, and sugar sweetened and diet drinks.

Note: Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend a minimum number of serves of fruit and vegetables each day, depending on a person's age and sex, to ensure good nutrition and health. Data for 2020-21 should not be compared to previous years, due to differing survey methods and participation rates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Males Females Persons

Fruit and vegetable consumption over time

Between 2007–08 and 2017–18, there was little improvement in the proportion of Australian adults consuming the recommended number of serves of fruit, vegetables or both fruit and vegetables. Throughout that time period, around half of adults failed to consume recommended serves of fruit, while more than 9 out of 10 failed to consume recommended serves of vegetables.2

Fruit and vegetable consumption over time

Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey: First Results 2017-18 - Australia. Summary health characteristics — 2001 to 2017–18, Proportion of persons

Note: Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend a minimum number of serves of fruit and vegetables each day, depending on a person's age and sex, to ensure good nutrition and health.

Meet recommended fruit intake Meet recommended vegetable intake Meet recommended intake of both

Discretionary food intake

Percentage of daily energy intake from discretionary food

The last comprehensive national survey of the diets of Australians was carried out over two decades ago, making it difficult to understand recent changes in dietary intakes and food consumption patterns.

In 2011–12, when the last survey was carried out, more than one-third of total daily energy in the diets of Australian adults came from foods and beverages classified as discretionary. Discretionary foods are high in energy but low in nutrients and are not needed to meet nutrient requirements.3 By age group, discretionary food intake accounted for 36% of total energy intake for 19 to 30-year-olds; 35% for 31 to 50-year-olds; 33% for 51 to 70-year-olds; and 34% for Australians aged 71 and older.4 Key contributors to adults’ discretionary food intake include alcoholic drinks, soft drinks, cakes and muffins, chocolate, fried potato products, sweet biscuits and pastries.4

Apparent consumption data from 2020–21, which records the total amount of foods purchased from food retailers, averaged across the whole Australian population, showed that 38.1% of the energy available from all foods was from foods classified as discretionary, an average of 3,382 kJ per person per day.5

Percentage of total daily energy intake from discretionary food

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Nutrition across the life stages. Canberra, Australia 2018.

Note: The Australian Dietary Guidelines Summary lists examples of discretionary choices as including: most sweet biscuits, cakes, desserts and pastries; processed meats and sausages; ice-cream; confectionery and chocolate; savoury pastries and pies; commercial burgers; commercially fried foods; potato chips, crisps and other fatty and/or salty snack foods; cream, butter and spreads which are high in saturated fats; sugar sweetened soft drinks and cordials, sports and energy drinks.

Total daily energy intake from discretionary foods

Average intake of added sugars

Added sugars are those added to foods by manufacturers or consumers, excluding those naturally present in honey, syrups and fruit juices.3 The World Health Organization recommends limiting energy from free sugars to less than 10% of daily energy intake.6 Note that the WHO recommendation relates to ‘free sugars’, which is a broader category including those naturally present, and total intakes of free sugars are likely to be higher than implied by the ‘added sugar’ data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Men aged 19 to 30 years had the highest average intake of added sugars in 2011–12. Average intake of added sugars decreased with age, and men consumed more added sugars than women. More recent data show in 2020–21, there was an average of 63.6 grams of added sugars per person per day, in foods purchased from retail outlets.5 The major food groups contributing to this were non-alcoholic beverages (26.2%, primarily from soft drinks and cordials), sugar products including spreads and jams (24.0%), and confectionery (18.9%).5

Average intake of added sugars

Australian Bureau of Statistics. 4364.0.55.011 - Australian Health Survey: Consumption of added sugars, 2011-12. 2016. Table 1.1
Note: Converted from grams (divided by 4) and rounded to nearest teaspoon.

Age Men (teaspoons) Women (teaspoons)
19-30 years 19 13
31-50 years 15 11
51-70 years 12 9
71+ years 11 9

Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption

More than one in five Australian adults (21%) consumed sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) such as soft drinks, cordials and sports drinks at least weekly in 2020–21, and 6.4% consumed them daily. By age group, the highest consumers of SSBs were 18 to 24-year-olds, 36.2% of whom consumed SSBs at least once a week and 8.5% consumed them daily.1

Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption

Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey 2020-21. Consumption of fruit, vegetables, and sugar sweetened and diet drinks.

Note: Sugar sweetened drinks includes soft drinks (including those in ready to drink alcoholic beverages), cordials, sports drinks or energy drinks. This definition excludes 'sugar free' drinks, fruit juice, flavoured milk, meal replacement shakes, water or flavoured water, or coffee/tea. Sugar sweetened drinks were reported based on usual consumption per day/week.

Did not consume 1-3 days 4-6 days Daily At least weekly

Physical activity

Physical activity snapshot

In 2020–21, only 28% of Australian adults met physical activity guidelines. The proportion of those meeting the guidelines varied by age group. The guidelines state that adults aged 18–64 years should engage in a minimum of 150 minutes of physical activity per week, over 5 sessions. Adults aged 18–24 years were most likely to meet this recommendation (34.3%), and those aged 55–64 were the least likely (19%).7

Physical activity snapshot

Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey 2020-21. Summary health characteristics by age and sex.

Note: For Australians aged 18-64, the recommendation is to be physically active for at least 150 minutes a week over five sessions, and . For adults aged 65 years and over the guidelines recommend at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most, preferably all, days.

Met guidelines

Physical activity over time

There was a slight increase in the proportion of adults that met the guidelines for sufficient physical activity between 2007–08 and 2017–18. In 2007–08 the age-standardised proportion of adults who were sufficiently active was 31.5% increasing to 35.5% in 2017–18.8

Physical activity over time

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2020. Insufficient Physical Activity Web Report. Supplementary table S3

Notes: Physical activity includes walking for fitness, recreation, or sport; walking to get to or from places; moderate exercise; and vigorous exercise recorded in the week prior to interview. Data does not include people for whom this measure was not known or not applicable.Rates are age–standardised to the 2001 Australian standard population. Note that these data can not be directly compared with 2020-21 data due to differences in data collection.

Men Women Person

Sedentary behaviour over time

Sedentary behaviour (sitting, reclining or lying) has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality, and is increasingly recognised as an important health risk. A high proportion of Australian adults report sitting for more than seven hours at work and leisure, on a typical workday.

More than half of full time employed Australian adults spent 7 hours or more sitting on a typical workday. This was fairly constant between 2007–08 (54.3%) and 2011–12 (56.2%).9

Sedentary behaviour over time

Loyen A, Chey T, Engelen L, Bauman A, Lakerveld J, et al. Recent trends in population levels and correlates of occupational and leisure sitting time in full-time employed Australian adults. PLoS ONE, 2018; 13(4):e0195177.

>4 hours / workday occuptional sitting >4 hours / workday leisure sitting >7 hours / workday combined occuptional and leisure sitting

Content for this page was written by Melanie Nichols, Deakin University and reviewed by Kathryn Backholer and Gary Sacks, Co-Directors at the Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition at Deakin University. For more information about the approach to content on the site please see About | Obesity Evidence Hub.

References

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey 2020-21: Dietary behaviour. . 2022; Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/health-conditions-and-risks/dietary-behaviour/2020-21.
2. Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey: First Results, 2017-18. Canberra, Australia 2018. Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/.
3. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 4364.0.55.012 - Australian Health Survey: Consumption of Food Groups from the Australian Dietary Guidelines, 2011-12. 2016. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats
4. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Nutrition across the life stages. Canberra, Australia 2018. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports
5. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Apparent Consumption of Selected Foodstuffs, Australia 2020-21. 2022; Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/health-conditions-and-risks/.
6. World Health Organization. Sugars intake for adults and children: guideline. Geneva, Switzerland 2015. https://www.who.int/nutrition/
7. Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey 2020-21. Summary health characteristics by age and sex. . 2022; Available from: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/health-conditions-and-risks.
8. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Insufficient Physical Activity (web report). 2020; Available from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/risk-factors/insufficient-physical-activity/contents/about.
9. Loyen A, C.T., Engelen L, Bauman A, Lakerveld J, et al. , Recent trends in population levels and correlates of occupational and leisure sitting time in full-time employed Australian adults. PLoS ONE, 2018(13(4):e0195177.).