This article answers this question about our food choices by providing evidence from a wide range of sources.

• Statistics from the Health Survey for England 2021
• What are the causes of these unhealthy trends?
  • Taste influences before and after birth
  • Childhood eating behaviours
  • Ultra-processed foods
  • ‘Nutrition transition’
  • Cost of living
• Why are people not motivated to eat more healthily?
• Dietary trends in the UK.

 

What the Health Survey for England tells us

From an evolutionary standpoint, we eat food to get energy, and we store this energy in the form of fat to survive when food is scarce. In the UK, we live in a part of the world that has both a surplus of food and high food consumption, but unfortunately our body’s ability to store fat hasn’t changed.

Although we need a certain amount of fat for healthy body functioning, current levels of food consumption are leading to an accumulation of excess fat stored in our bodies. This excess fat increases the risk of diseases such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes and cancer. 

According to The Health Survey for England 2021 26% of adults in England are obese and a further 38% are overweight. Unless we do something to prevent or slow down this increase in obesity and weight gain, current trends suggest that 60% of males and 50% of females will be obese by 2050.

 

What are the causes of these unhealthy trends

Taste influences before and after birth

Historically our sense of taste (sweet, salt, bitter, sour and umami/savoury) ensured that we consumed foods that were crucial for survival – for instance to provide energy, salt and protein – and that we avoided foods that were dangerous, for instance, rotten or poisonous. However, our food preferences are now a lot more complex and are also influenced by our environment, social context and our cultural and individual experiences.

Our dietary preferences develop early in life. They are believed to begin in the womb, and a baby’s exposure to certain foods while still in the womb has been linked to an increased dietary preference later in life. Exposure to certain flavours during prenatal and postnatal periods has also been linked to an infant’s increased enjoyment of these specific flavours during weaning.

In addition, studies have found that breastfed infants have a more diverse food preference compared with infants who were formula-fed.

Childhood eating behaviours

It is important to mention that exposure to certain foods alone is not the only factor contributing to food preferences; over time, the mother’s diet and the parent’s feeding habits also play a significant role in a child’s dietary preferences, for example, when children model themselves on their parents’ eating habits, lifestyle, eating-related attitudes, and satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their body image.

Ultra-processed foods

The increased prevalence of being overweight or obese seems to be associated with a ‘nutrition transition’, where people are moving away from traditional diets that were nutrient dense and rich in fibre to highly refined, low-fibre diets (ie, processed foods that are rich in sugar, fat and salt). For example, a US study published in 2018 concluded that a higher consumption of ultra-processed food (UPFs)
is associated with excess weight, and that this association is more pronounced among women.

Examples of ultra-processed foods include so-called ‘junk foods’, such as soft drinks with a high sugar content, potato chips with a high salt content, and confectionery with high sugar and high-fat content, as well as industrially manufactured baked goods such as pies and sausage rolls.

 

 

Diets that include a high level of UPFs, coupled with changes in occupational habits and lower physical activity, have resulted in an alarmingly high prevalence of lifestyle-related diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease (conditions that affect the blood supply to the heart and to the brain).

Several products that are often marketed and perceived as healthy – for example, granola bars, low-fat flavoured yogurt, low-energy frozen dinners, most industrially produced breads and canned soups – are also ultra-processed.

 

Nutrition transition

Nutrition transition is the combination of powerful changes in the way food is produced and consumed together with changes in lifestyles and working environments (including more sedentary occupations). However, the move towards less healthy diets such as UPFs is not inevitable if there is a political and societal commitment to adopt policies that improve dietary choices and social norms.

Cost of living

One further, and more recent, factor has been the current cost-of-living crisis. This crisis has encouraged the consumption of fast foods (ie, UPFs) as they are often more affordable.

In a 2023 poll in Britain, more than half of the people polled believed that increased costs have made it harder to make healthy food choices.

31% of British adults prioritise the cost of food over how healthy it is. Independent, 16 April 2023

 

Why are people not motivated to eat more healthily?

There are four main reasons why many people are not more motivated to eat healthier foods:

1. Convenience and time constraints
2. Taste (palatability)
3. Diet trends
4. Psychologically affected eating 

1. Convenience and time constraints

Supermarkets have a wide range of ready-prepared meals that are available at relatively affordable costs. However, although ready-prepared meals are convenient, they tend be high in calories, fat, sodium and preservatives, while being low in fibre, vitamins and minerals.

The illustration shows the main result of a large cross-European study published in 2017 which found three reasons that were most consistently associated with today’s higher consumption of fast foods.

 

Studies have found that young adults and working professionals are drawn towards convenience foods because they value the time that they can save on meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking.

’Time-scarcity/constraint’ has been identified as one of the main factors that affect food choices in developed countries. Individuals who see themselves as being short of time try to limit household tasks like cooking in order to save time, and they choose convenience options instead of traditional home-cooked meals, which might take more time to prepare.

As early as 2002, a UK survey identified 16% of respondents as ‘kitchen evaders’ and 33% as ‘convenience-seeking grazers’ These proportions are likely to have grown since the original survey.

2. Taste (palatability)

Foods rich in fat and sugar are referred to as palatable foods. They have been found to increase feelings of hunger while also reducing the response to satiety signals (feeling full). So, the more refined foods we consume the more we will desire these foods. This increased appetite then results in overeating.

A 2022 YouGov Food Study found that half of people surveyed (51%) said that taste was the most important factor when it came to choosing food –twice as many as the 24% who said the most relevant factor was how healthy the food was.

3. Diet fads and trends

A fad diet is a diet plan that promotes results such as fast weight loss without robust scientific evidence to support its claims. The Association of UK Dieticians, 2021

 

With the increase in obesity rates, there has also been a surge in the number of fad diets and weight loss programmes that have gained popularity.

 

However, while these diets may result in rapid weight loss in the short term, their long-term success tends to be poor, and they have been associated with weight gain within one year.

This lack of success could possibly be due to the restrictive nature of these diets, which don’t result in a long-term change in eating behaviour towards a more holistic and healthy diet.

4. Psychologically affected eating (stress eating, emotional eating)

Recent research (2019) has shown that emotions such as stress, depression and sadness can lead to ‘comfort eating’. This behaviour is ‘not in line with nutritional recommendations of reducing the consumption of highly refined and poor quality foods’.

Studies have also found that emotional eating resultsin a higher consumption of sweet energy-dense foods (sweet and high-fat foods such as pastries, desserts, chocolates etc) in both men and women. For instance, a 2022 study found that among obese participants being an emotional eater was negatively associated with healthy, natural food and positively associated with snacks and fast food.

 

Dietary trends in the UK

Taste vs health

According to the National Obesity Observatory (2011) report, the majority of the UK public is aware of the government’s health messages and most people, in principle, tend to want to improve their diet. However, as seen in the 2022 YouGov survey, taste rather than health was the most important factor for a significant number of people.

Younger generations are keen to lead healthier lifestyles

A 2018 study undertaken with 550 university students in London found that the students were motivated to lead healthier lifestyles and keener to eat healthily, compared with previous generations of students. This finding might suggest that young people from Generation Z (the post-millennial generation) have a more health-focused approach to food. If this continues into future generations it could change the overall patterns of food consumption.

A shift to plant-based diets

With the increasing awareness of the benefits of good nutrition, there has also been a worldwide shift in dietary preferences to more plant-based diets. According to Google trends, there has been a significant increase particularly in veganism since 2012 across the world. And the Vegan Society reported in 2018 that there were 600,000 vegans in the UK. This number equates to 1.16% of the population.

Research has shown that consumption of a balanced plant-based diet has been associated with health benefits such as lower cholesterol levels, lower Body Mass Index (BMI) and a reduced incidence of diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

While the proportion of vegetarians and vegans is estimated to be between 7% and 10% of the British population,
there is a continuing trend among the wider population to eat less meat and to sometimes eat vegetarian food. For instance, according to the Vegetarian Society, in the UK people ate 17% less meat in 2019 than in 2008. 

Reviewed and updated by Harrison Prince, May 2023. Next review date April 2027.

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You can find out more about making healthier food choices in these related articles on the Age Watch website:

• Diet: How to ensure we eat more healthily
  
• Diet: Healthy eating on a budget
• Diet: Gut and digestive health
• Diet: Healthy foods - Cruciferous vegetables, pulses and berries
  
• Diet: Vegetarian diet
• Tackling obesity: Mindful eating