By STEPHEN HART

As part of a series of lifestyle studies, commissioned by ASB Bank for their homebuyers’ website, www.iwantahome.co.nz Stephen Hart, decided to find out how our various towns and cities rate when it comes to the good health of their residents.

Homebuyers, especially those that are new to New Zealand, often know very little about our towns and cities. They might be aware of the comparative price levels, population sizes and even what their weather is like. But what about the things that really make them tick; their lifestyle attributes and how they affect the people who live there?

I thought it would be revealing to trawl through the statistics available to assess how our cities score against a variety of measures; most affordable, most prestigious, best for families, healthiest, etc.

Different things are important to different people of course but, generally speaking, we all want to live healthy lives, so I thought that would be a good place to start for the first report.

To keep things manageable I looked at 17 of our largest cities:

City Population
Auckland City 404,658
Christchurch City 348,435
Manukau City 328,968
North Shore City 205,605
Waitakere City 186,447
Wellington City 179,466
Hamilton City 129,249
Dunedin City 118,683
Tauranga District 103,632
Lower Hutt City 97,701
Rodney District 89,562
Palmerston North City 75,543
Napier City 55,359
Invercargill City 50,325
Porirua City 48,546
Nelson City 42,888
Upper Hutt City 38,415

And then analysed how they scored in comparison to one another against a number of health related measures, namely:

• Life expectancy
• Smoking
• Alcohol consumption
• Unemployment rates
• Access to GPs
• Participation in physical activity
• Sedentary behaviour
• Rating of own health
• Negative stress levels
• Air pollution perception
• Healthy body weight
• Fruit and vegetable intake

I then allocated or deducted points to the top five and the bottom five performers for each health category. Life expectancy was given double the points weighting of the other measures because I figured it is, after all, the ultimate acid test of overall good health. The points were then added up to create a league table of the top 10 healthy hot spots.

So, who came top?

Well, in the time honoured tradition, let me announce the results in reverse order:

In third place…Wellington City. All of that leaning against the wind and walking up and down hills is working wonders for the capital’s residents’ fitness levels.

Runner up is…North Shore City. The daily jogs on Takapuna Beach and in-car exercises while snarled up in the harbour bridge traffic are really paying off.

And the winner is…drum roll maestro, please….

Rodney District!

Yep, the North Shore’s northern neighbour - stretching from Kumeu in the south to Wellsford in the north – has been identified as New Zealand’s healthiest place to live.

Rodney’s results were strong against most of the health criteria measured.

It came second in the overall life expectancy stakes with an average age of 80.5 years for men and women.

Smokers account for only 16% (the third lowest) of the adult population compared to the national average of 19%.

91% of residents rated their own health as good, very good or excellent, which was the third highest.

Rodney came out first in terms of residents’ frequency of doing physical activity, with 62% saying they participated on at least five days a week, just ahead of Invercargill, Dunedin and Nelson on 61%.

All of that physical activity must be starting to pay dividends because another high scoring category was healthy body weight. Along with Waitemata District Health Board neighbours, Auckland, North Shore and Waitakere, Rodney had the best BMI (Body Mass Index) scores.

Another area where Rodney was top of the table was its residents’ exposure to negative stress. 49% said that they “rarely or never experienced negative stress” which was the highest number recorded. Chill, the rest of New Zealand.

Rodney isn’t perfect however. It had the highest unemployment rate of all of the places we analysed. It also came last for the number of General Practitioners available - only 48.2 per 100,000 people, compared to the national average of 71.3. Seems the doctors have realised that this healthiest of places is unlikely to be good for business.

For the complete report, top 10 league table, highlights – and lowlights – visit http://www.iwantahome.co.nz/topspots.html

Stephen Hart is the editor of Where to Live in Auckland and author of The Streetwise Homebuyer.

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