Background: The National Secondary Students’ Diet and Activity (NaSSDA) survey is an important initiative of Cancer Council Australia that provides regular monitoring of young people’s beliefs and behaviours surrounding diet and physical activity, as well as their experience of food marketing.
Aim: To provide current population estimates of adherence to national dietary and physical activity recommendations among Australian adolescents and assess trends over time.
Methods: Nationally representative cross-sectional samples of students in year levels 8 to 11 (ages 12 to 17 years) were surveyed in 2009-10 (n=13,790 from 238 schools), 2012-13 (n=10,309 from 196 schools) and 2018 (n=9,102 from 104 schools) using validated instruments administered via a self-report web-based questionnaire.
Results: In 2018, just over one-in-ten students (12%) reported meeting the recommended ≥5 daily serves of vegetables, while nearly three-quarters (73%) reported consuming the recommended ≥2 daily serves of fruit. Only 16% of students reported engaging in at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day, and adherence to the sedentary behaviour guideline (≤2 hours of electronic media use for entertainment) was low on both school days (16%) and weekend days (9%). Males were performing better than females in terms of vegetable intake and physical activity, but worse in relation to fruit intake. There were no significant improvements over time in the proportion of students meeting vegetable, fruit and physical activity recommendations; however, a decrease in the proportion of students meeting recommended levels of sedentary behaviour was observed.
Conclusion: This current snapshot of Australian adolescents’ lifestyle behaviours indicates that a majority are placing their health at risk by falling short of national dietary and physical activity recommendations. Greater investment in strategies aimed at creating supportive environments for young people are needed to better promote healthy eating choices and physical activity over sedentary pursuits within this important population segment.