The number of unhealthy food outlets in the Illawarra far outweighs the number of healthy ones, with the divide even more stark in poorer suburbs, new research shows.
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With many new fast-food outlets opening and in the works, health advocates say more must be done to regulate these businesses which are adding to the state's health crisis.
New research from the University of Wollongong has mapped food outlets in the region, finding a ratio of five-to-one in favour of unhealthy food in Shellharbour, and a seven-to-one ratio in Wollongong.
Professor Karen Charlton and and Dr Katherine Kent from the Resilient and Sustainable Food Systems Research Group also looked at food stores in various suburbs, finding a significant correlation with unhealthy food and lower socioeconomic status.
The research used lists of registered food businesses obtained from local councils, and classified them into healthy, less healthy and unhealthy food.
Among the 272 food outlets in Shellharbour LGA, around half were classified as unhealthy (including fast-food, takeaway & pubs), around a third fell into the less healthy category (cafes, restaurants, bakeries), while a minority were considered healthy (supermarkets, greengrocers, butchers, fishmongers, and sandwich/sushi bars).
Warilla, Albion Park and Albion Park Rail had the highest proportion of unhealthy outlets in the LGA.
Among the 1008 food outlets in Wollongong LGA, around half were unhealthy. a third fell into the less healthy category and a minority were considered healthy.
Berkeley, Lake Heights, Cringila, Windang, Primbee, Horsley and Kembla Grange had the highest proportion of unhealthy food outlets.
Healthy Cities Illawarra CEO Kelly Andrews said the high concentration of unhealthy food in poorer areas could compound poverty and food insecurity in a cost-of-living crisis.
"People are finding it harder and harder to put food on the table and have access to healthy and affordable food," she said.
"People who don't have much money to spend end up making poor dietary choices - and you could even argue about whether its it really a choice.
"If they've got $25 to feed five people, and they can go to a fast food outlet and do that, then that's what they will do."
Concern as more unhealthy options pop up
Ms Andrews said she was concerned about the large number of recent openings of fast-food premises in the Illawarra, in suburbs like Warrawong and Unanderra.
She said Healthy Cities was also concerned about The Shellharbour Club's plans, floated last year, to build three drive-through restaurants on the corner of Shellharbour and Wattle roads: a McDonald's, a KFC and a Guzman y Gomez.
"This is adding to an environment which is already completely saturated with unhealthy food choices and not enough healthy food choices," she said.
"We know that the Shellharbour LGA has higher than the state average hospitalisations for overweight and obesity related chronic illness, so from a health point of view you're loading up the environment with more avenues to make unhealthy choices, which doesn't make any sense," she said.
"And when we're in a cost of living crisis and areas like Warrawong remain among the most disadvantaged postcodes in our state, more and more big commercial players opening outlets there is adding fuel to the fire.
"It's impacting the health of our communities."
There is a well-established link between wealth and health, with a Mercury analysis of 2021 Census data about chronic health conditions showing a much higher rate of diabetes, heart disease and people who had three or more chronic health conditions in lower-income suburbs.
How fast-food outlets cost the health system
Ms Andrews said everyone eventually paid the price of this health burden, and noted that emergency departments were experiencing record demand already.
"Our public hospital system is in absolute crisis, and the headlines are often talking about overworked emergency departments and the nurses ratio insufficient and just the burnout of people working in our acute hospital system," she said.
"But there's a lot of preventable diseases being treated in an acute setting when we can prevent them in the first place by having better public health policy and preventative health measures.
"Instead, we've got this situation where multinational corporations are coming in and making lots of money and then us as taxpayers are paying the cost for that through our public health system."
Ms Andrews said healthy cities and other health advocates often lodged their opposition to development applications for more fast food outlets. but that councils had limited powers to act on these concerns.
"I think local government needs to advocate to the state government for more control about what they can and can't allow in terms of development for healthy or unhealthy products," she said.
"If councils could look really seriously at the number and nature of unhealthy food outlets, and have some decision making powers around that that I think would be really useful.
"It would let governments put the health and well-being of their community at the centre of their policy decision making."
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
