City-country divide in Victoria’s obesity crisis

Victorians living in the country or on Melbourne’s fringe are more likely to be fat, with many areas where 70 per cent of residents are either overweight or obese. See how your town or suburb stacks up.

Country Victoria and people living on Melbourne’s fringe are suffering from obesity at more than twice the rates of those in wealthy city areas.

An analysis of obesity rates across the nation has painted a dire situation for swathes of regional Victoria, where more than one in three people are obese.

The breakdown by Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute shows a clear divide between wealth and disadvantaged areas, with strong impacts on residents’ health.

In the Central Goldfields more than 36 per cent of residents are now obese, according to the analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

It is one of 24 Victorian local government areas where more than a third of the residents are now considered obese — and all of them are either in regional or urban fringe areas.

Victoria also has eighteen local government areas where 70 per cent or more of their populations are considered either overweight or obese.

Those areas are: Alpine, Cardinia, Casey, Central Goldfields, Golden Plains, Hume, Loddon, Melton, Mildura, Mitchell, Moira, Moorabool, Moyne, Pyrenees, Strathbogie, Wellington, Wodonga, Wyndham.

Melton tops the state with 74.3 per cent of it’s population either overweight or obese.

Higher rates of obesity are seen in communities of disadvantage.

By contrast, Melbourne has Australia’s lowest rates of obesity, prompting the institute’s Professor Rosemary Calder to call for a greater focus on community prevention strategies rather than the individuals.

“In some parts of Australia close to one in two of the population are obese, which is just mind-blowing,” Prof Calder said.

“Lets get a focus on place. It is communities of disadvantage where the highest rates are, lets attend to that.

“We have communities where these risks cluster and they are the ones with the highest rates of obesity, the greatest escalation rates in obesity and the highest rates for risk preventable disease and mortality.”

The 20 Victorian areas with the lowest rates of obesity are all in inner Melbourne’s, led by Boroondara, Melbourne, Stonnington, Yarra and Port Phillip.

Australia’s obesity has risen 27 per cent over the past decade.

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Similar to system-wide efforts to tackle the road toll, Prof Calder said Commonwealth, State and local governments needed to come together for regional steering groups to overhaul troubled communities.

As well as national policies around the sugar and salt content of cheaper processed foods, Prof Calder said regional solutions such as tree canopies, walking tracks and parks, and accessibility to fresh food needed to be examined.

“If we did nothing but concentrate on the 100 most disadvantaged communities in Australia, with collaborative government investment … we would see a difference in a decade.

“If you put a three-year effort into changing the physical environment in a community you will get a difference and people will see, feel and experience difference.

“The benefits are long-term (but) the investment actually have to be immediate with some really good short-term outcomes to get people engaged.”

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA / PER CENT OF POPULATION WHO ARE OBESE

Alpine / 34.1

Ararat / 32.6

Ballarat / 33.8

Banyule / 22.9

Bass Coast / 31

Baw Baw / 32.7

Bayside / 17.7

Benalla / 31.2

Boroondara / 14.5

Brimbank / 27.4

Buloke / 32.4

Campaspe / 33

Cardinia / 32.4

Casey / 32.2

Central Goldfields / 36.1

Colac-Otway / 31.3

Corangamite / 33.3

Darebin / 23.9

East Gippsland / 33.9

Frankston / 30.8

Gannawarra / 32.4

Glen Eira / 18.6

Glenelg / 32.5

Golden Plains / 35.4

Greater Bendigo / 34.2

Greater Dandenong / 26.3

Greater Geelong / 29.2

Greater Shepparton / 34.4

Hepburn / 33.3

Hindmarsh / 33

Hobsons Bay / 24.9

Horsham / 32.2

Hume / 33.3

Indigo / 32.7

Kingston / 24.8

Knox / 24.5

Latrobe / 33.8

Loddon / 34.8

Macedon Ranges / 29.6

Manningham / 19.1

Mansfield / 33.9

Maribyrnong / 21.9

Maroondah / 26.3

Melbourne / 15.3

Melton / 35.6

Mildura / 35.6

Mitchell / 33.6

Moira / 34.6

Monash / 19.7

Moonee Valley / 24.4

Moorabool / 35.1

Moreland / 24.2

Mornington Peninsula / 27.4

Mount Alexander / 32.1

Moyne / 34.3

Murrindindi / 32.7

Nillumbik / 22.8

Northern Grampians / 33.5

Port Phillip / 17.4

Pyrenees / 35.6

Queenscliffe / 26.5

South Gippsland / 31.2

Southern Grampians / 29.3

Stonnington / 15.5

Strathbogie / 35.1

Surf Coast / 27.3

Swan Hill / 33

Towong / 32.9

Wangaratta / 32.6

Warrnambool / 32.5

Wellington / 34.8

West Wimmera / 33

Whitehorse / 19.5

Whittlesea / 30.8

Wodonga / 34.8

Wyndham / 31.5

Yarra / 16.3

Yarra Ranges / 27.1

Yarriambiack / 33

SOURCE: Australian Health Tracker/Australian Bureau of Statistics