Healthy Ireland Survey: Parents and Health

Healthy Ireland recently published a survey on a variety of health topics in the population of Ireland. This survey included a section on parents and their general health, weight, smoking habits, physical activity levels and sleep in comparison to non-parents.

Key findings include:

19% of parents smoke cigarettes to 23% of non-parents.
63% of parents are either overweight or obese which is similar to non-parents (66%).
Fathers are more likely to be overweight or obese (73%) compared to mothers (55%).
Only half of both parents and non-parents meet the minimum levels of physical activity of 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week (49% and 48% respectively).
73% of mothers and 71% of fathers would like to be more physically active.
On average, parents receive 6.9 hours of sleep per night.

Parents are more likely than non-parents to report their health as good or very good (90% and 85% respectively) however, this survey shows that the majority of parents could benefit from becoming more physically active and losing weight, especially as they are the role models to their children.

Niall Grieve