The results of the latest national health survey released last week revealed that we are an overweight nation that – probably not coincidentally – does little exercise and is not all that interested in eating fruit and vegetables. On the bright side, however, smoking rates have fallen by a third since 2000 and have shown solid falls since in 2011-12, especially in young men and women aged between 25 and 45.

Since the introduction of plain packaged cigarettes in December 2012, there has been a lot of frankly silly commentary trying to suggest they had no impact and that smoking had actually increased. In 2014 the Australian newspaper, for example, tried to spin the line fed by the tobacco industry that raising tobacco excise and plain packaging had “actually increased the number of smokers buying cheaper legal cigarettes”. The journalists even found one smoker who “definitely had not cut down” her smoking since the introduction of plain packaging.

Not exactly definitive.

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Rather bizarrely, the tobacco industry suggested plain packaging had no impact by explaining how after the new laws came into effect, the industry launched cheaper packets of cigarettes, and even offered a free cigarette or two in a packet, to counteract the ... errr ... impact of plain packaging.

The logic was never all that solid, but such is the case when your ideology involves defending an industry that makes a product designed to get people addicted to something that will kill them.

The ABS’s quarterly figures contained within the national accounts, however, showed that tobacco and cigarette consumption, despite the best efforts of the industry, fell after the introduction of plain packaging, and while in the two quarters since the introduction it did rise, consumption never again reached the levels seen before December 2012:

And once the first of four 12.5% annual increases in excise came into effect in December 2014, tobacco and cigarette consumption plummeted – as it always does when there is a big increase in excise. The ALP’s policy to keep the 12.5% increases going for another four years may be poor tax policy, but it sure as heck will cut smoking.

Some critics suggest the ABS didn’t know how to count cigarette consumption given the changes to packet sizes and the like. The ABS responded with an archly brief note suggesting that, yes, it did know how to walk and chew gum. This was not surprising given tobacco companies have been changing packet sizes and offering different discount cigarettes packets for decades.

And now we can also look at the results of the latest national health survey, which involved the survey of 14,700 private dwellings across the nation. It found that since 2011-12 the number of smokers has dropped by about 7%, from about 2.8 million to 2.6 million, or from 16.1% of the adult population to just 14.5%:

Now maybe the remaining smokers have collectively increased their smoking intake by more than 7% to keep the consumption of cigarette steady, or it might be time to admit that cigarette consumption has fallen.

In the past four years there has been a big drop in the proportion of young men smoking – down from 18.3% to 12.8%, the biggest drop observed by any age group regardless of gender.

The rate of smoking for men in their mid-20s to mid-40s remained pretty steady, unlike for women of that age group.

Now for the first time a smaller proportion of women aged 25-34 and 35-44 smoke than do women aged 18-24:

The news is also good for people who have quit – now the number of ex-smokers is almost double that of current smokers:

But our decline in smoking rates is not reflected in healthy habits elsewhere.

Only half of us do at least the recommended amount of exercise each week, and we clearly exercise less the older we get:

We also are not the biggest fans of fruit and vegetables.

Only half of adults have at least two of the recommended daily serves of fruit. Age certainly does make one seem more appreciative of fruit – only 42.8% of those aged 18-24 consume the required amount compared with 60.3% of those aged 65-74.

With vegetables the picture is rather more grim, perhaps because adults are recommended to have five to six servings each day. Only 9.3% of Australia adults reach that goal. The rest of us (and that would include me) are most likely to be found consuming one to two serves each day:

We actually consume more servings of vegetables than fruit, just not more than we need to.

With only half of us exercising enough, eating the right amount of fruit and with frankly bugger all of us eating enough vegetables, it is little wonder the survey also found only 35% of adults were within the normal weight range, and nearly two-thirds were classed as either overweight or obese:

Once again age is a big factor, not surprisingly given the decrease in exercise that goes with age. The graph exhibits a nice bulge in those middle-aged years that may be somewhat familiar to a few (or, in reality, two-thirds) of us.

There’s nothing like perusing health data to make you question whether sitting down with your feet up and a big bag of potato chips while watching the cricket is a good idea.

And as one whose sedentary job sees me do less physical activity than I should, it’s also a nice reminder as the Christmas holiday feasting season arrives that it might be best not to wait till the new year to start that exercise regime.