IT'S the nation's obesity capital.

One in four people in the sugar-growing region of Bundaberg is seriously overweight - the most of any local government area in Australia.

New research from Adelaide University's Public Health Information Development Unit has pinpointed the country's most healthy regions - as well as those blackspots of big eaters, binge drinkers, and chain smokers.

Overall, Queensland fares badly compared to the rest of the nation.

Apart from expanding waistlines in Bundaberg, the mining town of Mount Isa has the dubious honour of having one of the nation's highest rates of smoking, and holiday destinations in the Whitsundays have Queensland's highest excessive drinking rates.

Nationally, the slimmest local government area is the City of Melbourne.

The area with the least overweight or obese residents in Queensland - Brisbane - lags behind, with almost one in 10 extra people falling into the "flabby" category in Brisbane than in Melbourne.

Auburn in Sydney, which boasts a large Muslim population, is the area with the lowest rate of excessive drinking in the country, while Ku-ring-gai in NSW has the fewest smokers.

The mining hub of Geraldton in Western Australia has the highest rate of excessive drinking, while Broome has the nation's highest smoking rate.

Our healthiest areas were the Darling Downs and outlying regions and Brisbane central.

The Crows Nest region is home to healthy teetotallers, recording the lowest rates of smoking and drinking.

The nearby Bungil area, which includes Roma, has most people in a healthy weight range.

Australian Medical Association of Queensland president Dr Alex Markwell said Queensland Health data also supported evidence an "alarming" number of Queenslanders were clinically overweight or obese, with the number growing by 1 per cent a year.

She said being overweight could significantly raise the risk of serious health issues, such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Heart Foundation Queensland CEO Cameron Prout said local councils played a major role in making their communities healthier through town planning. Health campaigns alone would not solve the problem, he said.

Better footpaths to promote exercise and careful planning of where food outlets set up were two examples.

"We know that in communities where there is a high number of people living in socio-economic disadvantage there is also a higher proportion of unhealthy food choices in their communities," Mr Prout said.

"Local governments can do a lot around supporting healthier local food supply.

"Things like how they plan the location of fast food outlets and what signage regulations they have."

Mr Prout said smoking rates were more difficult to target as no single policy was going to have a dramatic effect on its own.

The Heart Foundation's clinical director Dr Rob Grenfell said introducing smoke-free and alcohol-free zones were other examples of how councils could promote the right messages.

"Poor physical activity is the number four cause of ill health and death, and local councils have the power to promote physical activity by planning open spaces, sports areas, walking spaces, housing density and traffic corridors," Dr Grenfell said.

He said the foundation was encouraging councils to educate small takeaway food outlets to replace high saturated fat palm oils in their fryers with healthier canola oil, and also running Heartmoves physical activity programs to get people exercising.

Chris Picketts, chief executive of Kimberley Pilbara Medicare Local, highlighted the difficulties in fixing the problem of smoking rates in his region by revealing that three in five indigenous women smoked through pregnancy.

He said fly-in fly-out miners who engaged in binge drinking bouts when they came off their six-week or four-week shifts were also exacerbating an alcohol problem.

- reporting by Lisa Cornish, Sue Dunlevy and Kelmeny Fraser