Year 7 Health Survey Trend Report 2019-2024

A Summary:

Healthy eating, regular physical activity and quality sleep are essential for good physical and mental health and wellbeing at any age. 
Findings over the last 5 years of the Y7HS indicate that:

•  The proportion of Year 7 students who ate 2 or more serves of fruit and 5 or more serves of vegetables daily is stable. On average students ate 3 serves of fruit and vegetables each day. In 2024, 79% reported consuming 2 or more serves of fruit while 21% reported consuming 5 serves of vegetables per day.
• Almost all Year 7 students continue to consume fast food or discretionary snacks one or more times 
  per week. All discretionary food intake reduced significantly in 2020 (96%) and rose in the following year (98%) and remained stable since then. 
• Intake of any discretionary drinks one or more times rose significantly from 80% in 2019 to 87% in 2020 and stabilised at 90% in 2024.
• The proportion of students who consumed breakfast daily declined significantly from 61% in 2020 to 56% in 2021 and stabilised since then.
• The majority (over 85%) of Year 7 students help prepare dinner, set the table and help to clean up after meals one or more times per week. They also tend to eat dinner at the table with most of their family one or more times per week.
• Over half of ACT Year 7 students ate dinner while watching TV one or more times per week. About one third of the students used an electronic device while eating dinner one or more times per week. All proportions for mealtime behaviours have remained stable over the years.
• The proportion of students who were physically active for 60 minutes or more daily increased from 21% in 2019 to 29% in 2020 and stabilised at 32% by 2024.
• Students engaged in screen-based activities in their free time for 2 hours or less per day has declined from 46% in 2020 to 33% in 2024 for weekdays. On weekends, this proportion rose from 36% in 2020 to 47% in 2024.   
• The proportion of students who slept for 9–11 hours each day decreased from 44% in 2019 to 35% in 2021 and stabilised at 37% by 2024.
• Less than a third of ACT Year 7 students went to sleep at the same time each night on most days.
• Over a third of students reported waking up at the same time each morning on most days, declining significantly from 45% in 2020 to 38% in 2021 and stabilised since then.
•  Less than 9% of students reported falling asleep using an electronic device, which has remained stable. An even lesser proportion of students reported waking up during the night to use an electronic device which has also remained stable since 2020.
• Over half of ACT Year 7 students rated their health as “very good/excellent” in 2020 and 2024. The proportion dropped significantly in 2022 to 42% and has risen since then. The proportion of students who rated their health as “good” and “fair/poor” have remained stable between 2020 and 
  2024.

You can view the full report here.