Commissioned by the Cancer Institute NSW, people across NSW were asked about their behaviours since the country’s first COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020.
Professor David Currow, NSW Chief Cancer Officer and CEO of the Cancer Institute NSW, says the results highlight the need for people to be conscious of how a change in lifestyle can impact cancer risk.
“It was really encouraging to see that some people felt that they had become healthier across the past year – losing weight, eating healthier, exercising more and even quitting smoking,” Professor Currow explains.
“Unfortunately, the number of people who saw a negative change in those behaviours was often greater.”
Of people surveyed, more people reported gaining weight than losing it (40 per cent vs 21 per cent), with exercise happening less often for a third of us (34 per cent).
Positively, people reported that although they were eating more food (32 per cent), they were eating healthily (34 per cent) and consuming less fast food (39 per cent).
Keeping up with healthy habits while working from home
People who worked from home at least one day a week were more likely be eating more, to have adopted a less healthy diet and be exercising less.
The most dramatic change among all groups was the amount of time spent sedentary, meaning the time spent sitting or lying down while awake.
More than half of people reported being more sedentary, which rose to 61 per cent among those working from home.
“Many people are unaware that greater amounts of time sitting down can increase your risk of a number of illnesses, including cancer,” Professor Currow says.
“Even among people who exercise, if the rest of their time is sedentary, their risk will increase.
“In the era of video conferencing from home rather than commuting and moving to meetings, we need to make sure we are getting the opportunity to stand up and move about regularly.”
How we can introduce positive changes
With regard to smoking the news was also more positive. While the numbers of people smoking more and smoking less were similar (34% vs with 31%), seven per cent of people surveyed who smoked reported that they had quit altogether.
Professor Currow was clear that what was important now was to ensure people are aware of the cancer risk factors they can control to encourage them to make positive changes.
“We have just been through a year of incredible uncertainty and change, and for many of us the focus has just been getting through it. However, many of these changes, like more remote working, are likely to be more permanent.
“Given lifestyle behaviours account for one-in-three cancers, we want to make sure that changes made now don’t lead to serious health issues for people in the future,” he says.
“This polling gives us a temperature check to guide future research. However, it is important for us to get the message across to people now, before new, less healthy behaviours become ingrained.”
The Cancer Institute NSW has new resources to help people reduce cancer risk through healthy lifestyles: www.cancer.nsw.gov.au/prevention-and-screening/preventing-cancer/reduce-your-cancer-risk
Source: Cancer Institute NSW
