Whew. What a whirlwind last week as we headed to Brisbane for the 31st National DAA conference. So much new nutrition news to share in today’s highlights post. Are you ready?
Health Survey not so healthy
Results of our brand new National health survey are in and the ABS statisticans got a little grilled by the researchers on methodolgy and reporting. It would seem we are dieting more, but eating less of the good stuff. So dietitian Themis from Sprout Cooking showed us the “how to” in a fantastic cooking demo. Key stats include:
In 2011-12, over 2.3 million Australians (13%) aged 15 years and over reported that they were on a diet to lose weight or for some other health reason. This included 15% of females and 11% of males. Being on a diet was most prevalent among 51-70 year olds where 19% of females and 15% of males were on some kind of diet.
In 2011-12, 17% of Australians aged 2 years or over (or 3.7 million people) reported avoiding a food type due to allergy or intolerance and 7% (1.6 million) avoided particular foods for cultural, religious or ethical reasons. The most common type of food intolerance reported was Cow’s milk/Dairy (4.5%), followed by Gluten (2.5%), Shellfish (2.0%) and Peanuts (1.4%).
Just over one-third (35%) of total energy consumed was from ‘discretionary foods’, that is foods considered to be of little nutritional value and which tend to be high in saturated fats, sugars, salt and/or alcohol. The proportion of energy from discretionary foods was highest among the 14-18 year olds (41%). The particular food groups contributing most of the energy from discretionary foods were: Alcoholic beverages (4.8% of energy), Cakes, muffins scones and cake-type desserts (3.4%), Confectionery and cereal/nut/fruit/seed bars (2.8%), Pastries (2.6%), Sweet biscuits and Savoury biscuits (2.5%) and Soft drinks and flavoured mineral waters (1.9%).
Nutrition goes techno
With a theme, “The Future is Now” there was a huge focus on technology (yipee) from practice management software like Kalix to smart apps. Judy Bauer reminded us all to “Practice famine amidst information glut” and dietitians were encouraged to access our evidence based, online library PEN. And we had a huge turn out at our bootcamp for bloggers, took an “Ellen selfie” and launched our first ebook for all bloggers in the health space. Check out our growing list of Australian Dietitian Blogs.
Find out more about the book and grab your copy here.
There was so much more to share and report on that I’ve invited other bloggers to link up with us below, so you can catch up on all the news. You can also read the conference abstracts here. And we can’t wait to share more expert guest posts in the coming weeks. It was definitely head spin. In a good way.
