Portly Aussies undermine bronzed sports image

So much for the bronzed Aussie and the inevitable gold rush at this month's Commonwealth Games.

Far from the iconic images of beach and sports field, the nation's collective waistband is stretching to alarming limits, with an increasing number of Aussie adults drinking to risky excess.

And even with the blunt warnings of anti-tobacco campaigns, one in four adults continues to smoke - especially the young.

The big exceptions to the new national silhouette provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics are young women. While baby boomers, especially, continue to pack on the lard, one in 10 women aged between 18 and 24 is underweight.

The bureau's latest national health survey also depicts a population under increasing stress, subject to long-term illness and increasingly abandoning the public health system for private care.

Released yesterday, the survey confirms growing alarm at the level of obesity in Australia, particularly among the young, and concerns for the capacity of the Medicare universal health care system to cope with demand that is expected to rise as the population ages.

The federal Government last year launched a A$15 million ($16.8 million) healthy schools programme to tackle obesity that afflicts about a quarter of 5- to 17-year-olds, and will soon begin a A$6 million physical activity campaign aimed at children and adolescents.

The new national health survey shows that while most Australian adults consider themselves to be in good shape, 62 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women are either overweight or obese. This is despite that fact two-thirds exercise: half walked, and the rest exercised at either a moderate or vigorous level.

The middle aged are the most portly. About three-quarters of men and almost 60 per cent of women aged between 55 and 64 carry too much weight.

Baby boomers are also the biggest tipplers.

The survey reports that most adult Australians included in the survey had consumed alcohol in the week before they were interviewed - 78 per cent at a level constituting a low risk to their health.

But if the drinking habits of 13 per cent continued at the same high level, they would seriously risk damaging their health.

As it is, the survey says that more than two-thirds of the total population suffered at least one long-term medical condition, with asthma, hay fever and allergic rhinitis the most prevalent among children and teenagers.

The over-65s were mainly afflicted with eye problems, arthritis and high blood pressure.

Increasingly, these problems are being treated through the private health sector.

About half of Australians aged 15 or over have private health insurance, and most of those who do not said the only reason was that they could not afford it.

The survey also found that 13 per cent of the population - 59 per cent of them female - suffered high or very high levels of psychological distress.