Australian women stressed and overweight: Survey

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDOct 12 2010

In a poll known as “Australia's Biggest Health Check” 26,000 responders showed that Australia's women feel stressed out and unfit and overworked. It also shows that they have barely half an hour of leisure time per day and the mismatch between how much sex women want versus what they get. The survey was promoted via two magazines - Women's Health and Prevention - and also had the backing of Priceline and the Seven Network’s Sunrise program. There were 24,500 women and 1,500 men in on the poll.

According to Dr Aaron Coutts, senior lecturer in sport and exercise science at the University of Technology Sydney, “What it demonstrated was that women are very positive, women want to improve their health… Clearly some of the measures in terms of stress and overweightness need to be improved but in terms of a comparative kind of study it is a positive finding.”

Results showed that 47% women wanted to lose weight, 47% wanted to exercise more and 41% wanted to sleep more. Between ages 25 to 39 more women were worried about anxiety and stress than breast or skin cancer. For women over 40, arthritis topped the list. Especially NSW women between 25 to 39 stress levels were highest with financial concerns and lack of sleep and time the major reasons. 46% were overweight or obese and 22% rated themselves fit. Only 17% were happy with their body weight while 36 per cent said it “often made them feel down”.

The research did show women were meeting the 150 minutes a week of exercise recommended for general health. Women reported 3.74 hours of leisure time a week making it difficult to fit in more time for exercise that would improve health and reduce stress, Dr Coutts said. They also said they had sex an average of 1.22 times a week, although they would like to increase this to 2.42. Only 54% were moderately or very satisfied with their current sex live, while 19 per cent were not very happy or not satisfied at all.

Dr Coutts added, “Our concern is those who were overweight or obese, they were doing enough for general health but to reverse their obesity or over-weightness they probably need to do more…You have to do sometimes double that amount of exercise ... it becomes harder and you need more motivation while reducing (food) energy intake.”