JUST nine per cent of residents are eating the daily recommended intake of vegetables, the City of Greater Bendigo Active Living census reveals.
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It also reveals more than 50 per cent are not eating the recommended one or two pieces of fruit per day.
More than 17,000 people completed the survey - the highest participation rate of any survey the council has issued - with the results being released on Tuesday.
City of Greater Bendigo research and evaluation officer Amy Brown said the findings were of great concern, despite the fact vegetable intake in Bendigo is above the national rates of vegetable consumption.
Indeed, Australian Bureau of Statistics Australian Health Survey 2011 -12 shows just 6.8 per cent of the federal population eat the recommended five serves of vegetables per day.
St John of God Bendigo dietitian Kylie Shanahan said eating processed food had now overtaken smoking as the major lifestyle factor crippling people's health.
"The tobacco problem we had in the 90s is now processed food," she said.
"We will realise it is causing as much damage to our health as tobacco did."
Ms Shanahan said significantly more people were presenting to the hospital in recent years with illnesses caused by poor diets.
She said the federal government needed to tighten the regulation of the food industry, to encourage people to make healthier choices.
"I think we need to stop blaming the individual for poor eating, we also also need to tackle it from a national level like we did tobacco," she said.
VicHealth chief executive Jerril Rechter said making a habit of eating fruit and vegetables as part of a daily diet could help prevent obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
She said a lack of fruit and vegetables was one of the key risk factors that led to obesity.
“We need to revive the value once placed in fruit and vegetables, so that the healthy choice is the easiest – and the most desirable – choice," she said.
"We need to create conditions that encourage people to eat more healthy food and less energy-dense, nutrient-poor food, and to move more every day."
The City of Greater Bendigo will use the results of the survey to inform its planning.
