Heart Foundation highlights massive danger for ‘overweight’ Darwin

The Heart Foundation is taking aim at people with "grabbable guts" in Darwin, the capital city with the worst combined ranking for obesity and physical inactivity in Australia.

The Heart Foundation today (29th September) joined with the Northern Territory Government to launch its Live Lighter campaign, which will involve advertisements running on TV and radio, and a Darwin bus wrapped with health messages.

Heart Foundation Northern Territory Chief Executive Simon Dixon stated “(the people of Darwin) are the most overweight and obese, and the least physically active of any Australian capital city.”

The campaign will highlight the damage that having an unhealthy weight, poor diet and lack of physical activity can have on the body.

Dixon added “its time to take a direct approach and demonstrate the link between a grabbable gut and chronic disease."

Dixon explained that about 105,000 Territorians were carrying around a "grabbable gut" - a gut that has so much fat it can be grabbed.

Percentage of people insufficiently active in each capital city

• Darwin: 63.5%
• Adelaide: 59.4%
• Hobart: 57.8%
• Melbourne: 54.9%
• Perth: 53.7%
• Brisbane: 53.5%
• Sydney: 52.6%
• ACT: 50.5%
*Source: Australian Health Survey

Darwin ranks as the worst Australian capital city for a combined index of obesity and insufficient physical activity.

About 26.8% of people in Darwin are obese, while 63.5% are not active enough, according to the latest Australian Health Survey results, which covers the period from 2011 to 2013.

The new campaign will encourage Territorians to swap sugary drinks for tap water.

Dixon emphasised that people who consume just one 600 millilitre soft drink each day for one year they would ingest about 23 kilograms of sugar.

He told 105.7 ABC Darwin "if you are not burning off that energy that stores as toxic fat in your body and around your vital organs.”

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