A healthy lifestyle campaign is spreading a message to young people: Make the right choices for your future.

And South East Queensland’s indigenous population is a key target.

Carolina Otero reports.

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Statistics show that life expectancy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is approximately ten years lower than it is for the non-Indigenous population.

The Deadly Choices campaign is targeting diseases which most affect Indigenous people, like diabetes, respiratory disorders, and ear and eye diseases.

Zoeanna Santo, Institute of Health: “Just getting the message of health out there, so that kids know to get into the medical centres, get checked even if there’s nothing wrong, is better to know nothing’s wrong than to find out that you have chronic disease down the track.”

The campaign will spread awareness by bringing Indigenous children and their parents together to play traditional games and get some ‘good tukka’.

More than two dozen of the health bodies behind preventative programs like this have seen their funds axed by the Newman Government.

Aunty Honor Cleary, Aboriginal Elder: “He doesn’t realise it starts from the children, it starts from babies, and it’s not only going to be Indigenous families that feel it, it’s the white families feeling it too. They’ve got to struggle too.”

Carolina Otero, QUT News.