Overview

The food and beverages we eat and drink (our diet) play an important role in our overall health and wellbeing. Diets that provide insufficient or excessive amounts of energy, nutrients and other components can result in ill health.

Health conditions that are often affected by our diet include overweight and obesity, coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, some forms of cancer and type 2 diabetes.

Featured summary

Featured reports

Latest findings

Monitoring food and nutrition is important, however data are collected infrequently

Novel sources of data for food and nutrition monitoring have not been collected or extensively used for those purposes

Novel data sources can be used to complement traditional food and nutrition data sources

Nearly all Australians (99%) aged 2–18, and 9 in 10 adults aged 19 and over do not eat enough vegetables

Although fruit intake is closest to the recommendations, nearly 4 in 5 adults (77%) aged 19–50 do not eat enough

About one-third of Australians’ energy is from discretionary foods. This is highest for teenagers aged 14–18, at 41%

More reports and statistics on food and nutrition can be found under Physical activity and Overweight & obesity.