Canberra's school children are eating better and drinking less sugary drinks, but we're going backwards when it comes to getting them exercising enough.
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At least four in five primary school children don't do the recommended amount of physical activity and a quarter are overweight or obese.
A progress report on the Government's Healthy Weight Initiative shows the ACT appears to be going backwards when it comes to getting school children to meet physical activity guidelines.
It is the only area in the initiative, which was started in 2013, where the ACT has seen a trend away from its targets.
ACT Chief Health Officer Dr Paul Kelly said the habits children developed set them up for life.
"The aim of what we're trying to do brings in much more than just saying to kids 'you've got to exercise more', it's much more than join a sporting club and do an hour or two a week because that's not really going to change the reasons why kids are not as physically active as they were 20 or 30 years ago," he said.
Dr Kelly said we now tended to live more sedentary lifestyles and children's entertainment tended to be more screen-based.
Children also tended to be dropped off more at school because parents led busier lives or there were safety concerns, he said.
Dr Kelly said there were 52 schools taking part in the government's ride and walk to school program and the government was trialling an active streets pilot in four schools.
Such initiatives aimed to increase the amount of "incidental exercise" children were doing, he said.
"That sort of incidental exercise that can come from that sort of change to the setting can set people up to easily meet their physical activity targets, to improve their health and wellbeing and also to address obesity," he said.
Dr Kelly said there were also supports and programs for school teachers around physical activity during school hours.
Canberra had some of the country's best infrastructure to support riding and walking to school, he said.
Dr Kelly said research has shown Canberra children wanted to be more active and had a desire to walk and ride to school.
The report did show positive inroads in other areas of tackling the territory's obesity crisis, with progress being made in areas such as zero growth in the number of obese or overweight adults and children, and reducing sugary drink consumption for children.
The ACT has also made improvements towards its targets of a zero increase in children exceeding screen time guidelines and getting them to eat enough fruit.
Dr Kelly said it had taken a generation to get to current obesity and overweight levels and it would likely take another generation to fix the problem.
"We still need to prove we can fix it, there's some positive signs in this evaluation. It's a marathon, not a sprint," he said.
"People are realising that this is a real issue for us. Obesity in itself is one thing, but it's a strong indicator of many chronic diseases including cancer and that has a real influence on our health dollar in the long term, but also on people's ability to lead productive lives.
"We know if people are obese and they have various chronic diseases, then they don't live as long."
About 63 per cent of ACT adults are obese or overweight.
Assistant health minister Meegan Fitzharris said the report showed some positive progress was being made towards meeting almost half of the initiative's targets, but there were areas where more work was needed to "ensure momentum is maintained in the long-term".
