Diet and nutrition: key points

• Good nutrition is essential to both current health and wellbeing, and health and wellbeing later in life. Eating a healthy diet can help reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, some cancers, obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis and tooth decay.
• In 2016, the Scottish Government revised the Scottish Dietary Goals, following recommendations from the Food Standards Scotland (FSS) Board that the Goals should reflect new recommendations on intakes of sugar and fibre from the independent Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN).
• The ‘Supporting healthy choices’ framework was launched in June 2014 and has a particular focus on children’s health, promotions, helping consumers with better information, and making products and menus healthier. More recently ‘A healthier future: Scotland’s diet and healthy weight delivery plan’ was launched by the Scottish Government, setting out the challenge of improving Scotland’s diet and reducing the impact of poor diets.
• A soft drinks industry levy was proposed in the UK Government’s 2016 budget. After a period of consultation the levy was introduced in April 2018.
• In 2019 the UK Chief Medical Officer released the report 'Time to solve childhood obesity', which drew attention to the need for action on environmental influences on diet and exercise.
• In 2018, the Scottish Government implemented Minimum Unit Pricing for alcohol, which was later associated with a 3.5% reduction in alcohol consumption.
• Estimates from SHeS for fruit and vegetable consumption in Scotland in 2019 indicate that 21% of men and 23% of women consumed the recommended amount of five or more portions per day.  The 2017 proportions were the highest since the record began in 2003 (22% for men and 26% for women).

• People living in the most deprived areas of Scotland are less likely to meet five-a-day recommendations for daily fruit and vegetable consumption compared with those in the least deprived areas.
• In 2017 and 2018, 15% of children aged 2-15 years met the recommended daily intake of five or more portions, this dropped to 14% in 2019.
• In 2019, nine per cent of adults in Scotland reported having experienced food insecurity in terms of worrying that they would run out of food due to lack of money or resources during the previous 12 months, the same proportion as in 2018.

• There was a linear decrease in salt intake in adults between 2006 and 2014 of approximately 13%.