By Sahar Foladi
Staggering statistics reveal City of Greater Dandenong residents are less active than the national and state averages.
According to the Heart Foundation, Greater Dandenong sits high with 78.2 per cent doing insufficient exercise across the municipality despite the council’s efforts.
With more than 90 schools in the municipality only 11 have registered in council’s Get Active Get Moving initiative.
Deputy mayor Lana Formoso is passionate about physical health as a PE teacher and an advocate for physical activity.
“We need to collaborate with school and community groups directly for programs like ‘Get Active, Get Moving’. How are we going to change our current statistics if we only have 11 schools participating out of 99 in our municipality?
“We need to do so much more to ensure everyone that lives, works, studies and plays in Greater Dandenong are being more active. Health is wealth.”
According to Health Foundation, Greater Dandenong has high numbers in almost all of the heart disease risk factor categories.
It beats the national and Victorian rates for smoking by 3 per cent, sitting high on 18.9 per cent.
Also, 23.5 per cent have high blood pressure while the national average is 22.8 per cent and Victoria’s 22.7 per cent.
Mortality rates from coronary heart disease in Greater Dandenong from 2012 to 2020 was 63.3 per 100,000 residents – less than the national figure of 63.8 but higher than the state rate of 60.2.
Cr Formoso said these figures are “no surprise”.
“I wish organisations like HF would work a lot closer with our community to improve our health outcomes. Tobacco use and gambling harm all perpetuate this issue as well.
“I got onto to council to ensure our community had the best possible health outcomes with appropriate programs, facilities and strategies.”
City of Greater Dandenong is also one of the many municipalities hit hard with gambling losses in the state.
$102 million was lost to 924 electronic gaming machines at 14 clubs and pubs in Greater Dandenong in 2021-’22.
This is the second highest rate of gambling losses per adult in Victoria, twice the state average and equates to the cost of feeding 39,000 children for an entire year.
More recently, losses to electronic gaming machines surged after the Covid lock downs rising last year by $10 million and projected to increase to $120 million in 2022-’23.
