Shocking new statistics have revealed less than half of Kiwis are physically active and community advocate Dave 'Buttabean' Letele is warning it's only going to get worse.
The annual New Zealand Health Survey was released by the Ministry of Health on Thursday.
It found less than half of adults (46.5 percent) met physical activity guidelines – the lowest number since the survey began in 2011.
It also found about one in three adults (32.6 percent) in New Zealand were classified as obese, a rate that is similar to five years ago.
Appearing on Newshub Late, Letele, who runs the free community fitness programme Brown Buttabean Motivation (BBM), said these statistics were "really worrying".
"It's something that we're fighting every day in BBM. Primarily, we are a health group, that's how we started, helping people live healthier and happier lifestyles," he said. "As the cost of living increases and everyone's so busy trying to survive, there's no time."
For example, Letele said he was messaged by a mum asking for help for her 15-year-old who was 213kgs. He told her to come and see him but she didn't have time, she had just finished work at 1am and was back working early that same morning.
"People are working hard, multiple jobs, there's no time to go and cook something healthy, go and shop for something healthy," Letele said.
"There's no knowledge being passed down about how to cook healthy, so this cycle continues. We grab what's cheap and what's convenient... that's why this is only going to get worse."
Letele said this shows the importance of governments investing in programmes like BBM that educate people about healthy lifestyles.
The survey found about 110,000 children aged 2–14 years (13.5 percent) were classified as obese in 2022/23, which is slightly higher than five years ago (11.6 percent). Among children, Māori (21.7 percent), Pacific (27.8 percent) and children living in the most deprived neighbourhoods (26.4 percent) were most likely to be classified as obese.
Disabled adults and children were also more likely to be classified as obese than non-disabled people.
The survey also found a decline in the number of adults meeting physical activity guidelines from 51.3 percent in 2021/2022 to 46.5 percent in 2022/2023. It also found men (49.6 percent) were more likely to meet physical activity guidelines than women (43.7 percent).
Physical activity was measured in the survey as at least 2.5 hours of activity in a week.
