The Cancer Council's National Secondary Students' Diet and Activity (NaSSDA) study surveyed teens about their diet and lifestyle habits.

It revealed only 1 in 6 (16 per cent) of secondary school children - aged 12 - 17 years - met recommended guidelines for physical activity.

The study also found that while few teens were getting enough exercise the latest survey reported six in 10 teens (61 per cent) do get the recommended 60 minutes at least four days a week, an increase from five in 10 (52 per cent) in 2009-10.

Clare Hughes, the chair of Cancer Council's national Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee, said it was encouraging to see improvements but the figures still show very few teenagers were met recommended guidelines.

"Physical activity in teenage years sets up good habits for your adult years," she said. "Being physically active reduces the risk of unhealthy weight gain and reduces the risk of developing 13 different types of cancer later in life including endometrial, breast and bowel cancer so we really want to see as many teens as possible setting up good exercise habits while they are young.

"When we look at the combined cohort, over half (52 per cent) said a lack of physical activity options in school was a barrier and almost as many (48 per cent) said they were too far from school to walk or ride."

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Boys were more than twice as likely to meet the physical activity recommendations than girls (21 per cent compared to nine).

Girls cited a number of barriers to participating with the most common being feeling self-conscious when doing physical activity.

Girls were twice as likely to note feeling self-conscious with 30 per cent of girls reporting this compared to 16 per cent of males feeling this way.

They were also more likely than boys to report weight management as a reason for being physically active with 77 per cent of girls reporting this compared to 73 per cent of boys.

Ms Hughes said "Three in four students agreed that both their school and their parents encourage them to undertake sports and physical activities."

She added the Cancer Council was pleased the issue was being addressed.

"We're pleased to see physical activity addressed in the draft National Preventative Health Strategy and call on the Australian government to support people to be more active and to develop a national active transport strategy that will encourage walking, cycling and public transport use," she said.

"We know how important physical activity is for overall health and wellbeing, including preventing cancers of the breast, bowel and endometrium.

"We want to ensure that there are the systems and environments in place for all young Australians to develop strong physical activity habits that they can carry on, reducing the risk of health problems including cancer later in life."

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