Nutrition & Diet

The UK's official healthy-eating model, the Eatwell Guide, recommends that adults base meals on starchy carbohydrates (ideally wholegrain), eat at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables a day, choose some beans, pulses, fish, eggs and other proteins (including two portions of fish per week, one oily), have some dairy or fortified dairy alternatives, and use small amounts of unsaturated oils.^{[1]PHE/NHS, Eatwell Guide}

Population targets sit alongside this: SACN recommends free sugars provide no more than 5% of total daily energy, fibre intake of 30 g/day for adults, and salt intake of no more than 6 g/day.^{[2]SACN 2015[5]SACN 2003}

The National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS), the UK's rolling dietary surveillance programme, consistently shows that British adults exceed recommendations for saturated fat, free sugars and salt, and fall short on fibre, oily fish, fruit and vegetables. Only around a third of adults meet the 5-a-day target.^[4]NDNS

The Health Survey for England 2022 reported that 64% of adults were overweight or living with obesity (BMI ≥ 25), including 26% with obesity (BMI ≥ 30). Roughly 1 in 10 reception-age children and 1 in 5 year-6 children in England live with obesity.^{[3]HSE 2022}

Excess weight is a primary driver of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, several cancers and musculoskeletal disease, and is estimated by OHID to cost the NHS around £6 billion a year.^[4]OHID

SACN's Salt and Health report set the UK adult target at 6 g/day, with progressive industry reformulation targets coordinated since 2003. Average intake has fallen but still sits at around 8.4 g/day, with most salt coming from processed foods rather than the salt cellar.^{[5]SACN 2003[4]NDNS}

A 2024 umbrella review in The BMJ synthesised 45 meta-analyses covering nearly 10 million participants. Higher exposure to ultra-processed foods was associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, type 2 diabetes, depression and adverse mental health outcomes.^{[6]BMJ 2024}

UK adults derive over half of dietary energy from ultra-processed foods — one of the highest shares in Europe — and intake is concentrated in lower-income groups, where it tracks with worse diet quality overall.^[4]NDNS

The PREDIMED randomised trial (n = 7,447 high-risk adults, follow-up ≈4.8 years) found a ~30% reduction in major cardiovascular events in participants assigned to a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts, compared with a reduced-fat control. NICE and the British Heart Foundation cite Mediterranean-style eating as the dietary pattern with the strongest cardiovascular outcome data.^{[7]PREDIMED, NEJM 2018}