West Australians eating more fast food as general health in freefall

West Australians are eating much more fast food than they were a decade ago and general health is plummeting with less than half of the state considering themselves to be very healthy.

The findings were included in the results of the 2024 health and wellbeing of adults survey run by WA Health, which found most aspects of the population’s health was declining despite some areas of improvement like reduced vaping rates.

Fast food rates are exploding in WA.

The survey of 13,780 participants throughout 2024 found less than half of adults self-reported their general health as being excellent or very good compared to 50.2 per cent in 2023.

This figure is more than 10 per cent below 2014 figures, where 59.3 per cent of Sandgropers considered themselves to be very healthy.

On the other end of the scale, 5.4 per cent of people considered their health to be poor while 13.4 per cent said it was fair. In 2023, 4.7 per cent said their health was poor while that was just 2.1 per cent in 2014.

West Australians’ diets have also gotten worse in the past decade with fast food consumption rising rapidly.

Comparing figures from the 2024 survey to 2014, the rates of people who never have any fast food dropped from 44 per cent to 31.5 per cent.

The number of people who have it less than once per week rose from 24.2 per cent in 2014 to 31.2 per cent while those having it once or twice per week rose from 28.3 per cent to 31.3 per cent.

In 2024, 6 per cent of people have fast food three or more times per week compared to 3.5 per cent in 2014.

In 2024, just 4.7 per cent of people were eating five vegetables daily as recommended by the Australian dietary guidelines, while 33.4 per cent ate the recommended two fruits.

Those poorer diets are showing up in obesity rates, with 37.3 per cent reporting they were obese and 37.4 per cent reporting they were overweight.

Obesity rates were a slight improvement on the 2023 survey where 38.2 per cent reported they were obese but much worse compared to 2014 which found 38.9 per cent of people were overweight and 27.5 per cent obese.

Exercise rates have remained steady with 61 per cent of adults reporting they did at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week compared to 64.3 per cent in 2014.

One obvious area of improvement was that vaping rates were improving.

Nearly 8 per cent of people reported they were current vape users, a drop of nearly 3 per cent compared to 2023.

The highest rates of vape users were those aged 18 to 44 at 13.3 per cent, but that is down from 19.3 per cent in 2023.

More than one in five West Australians have tried vaping with the most enthusiastic of that cohort being males aged 18-44, where more than 40 per cent have tried it.

Curtin public health expert Professor Jonine Jancey said bans on sales of vapes came into effect in October 2024 so it may have had an impact on WA’s rates, but it was still disappointing to see so many West Australians had tried it.

“As the legislation was only introduced in 2024, and these stats were collected in 2024, perhaps the impact of the legislation is not reflected in them, but we need to ensure that the current legislation is not being bypassed, as it would appear tobacconists and vape shops are still selling illegal vapes, even though we have strong vaping control laws now in place,” she said.

“Even though vapes for delivery of nicotine are not permitted to be used in any area where smoking is restricted, there seems to be a great deal of public vaping occurring.

“Once again, enforcement and education would be excellent strategies to address this and would also go someway to making vaping less socially acceptable.”

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