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Food and nutrition

Eating a diet that has adequate nutrients and energy is important for health and wellbeing. Eating a diet that is too high or too low in energy, too high in salt, sugar or saturated fat or too low in fibre, fruit, vegetables and other nutrients is associated with many chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and diabetes type II. The Scottish Dietary Goals (SDGs), revised and published by Scottish Government in 2016, lay out the elements of a diet that, in nutritional terms, will improve and support the health of the Scottish population.The only SDG to be met was red and processed meat. There has been limited progress towards most of the SDGs, with most people's intakes of fruit and vegetables, oil rich fish, total carbohydrate and dietary fibre too low and free sugars, total fats and saturated fats too high for their health.

Consuming five or more portions of fruit and vegetables is often used as a proxy measure for a healthy diet.

Fruit and vegetable consumption in Glasgow

The Glasgow City Health and Wellbeing survey has asked questions on fruit and vegetable consumption in the same way since the 2014/15 survey.While there was very little change in responses between 2014/15 and 2017/18, there was a significant decrease in the proportion meeting the recommendation in 2022/23 survey. This was observed across all areas, but fell from a lower level in the lowest income areas, resulting in only slightly more than a quarter of respondents in those areas meeting the guideline of eating five or more pieces of fruit or vegetables a day.

Comparison with other measures

The  Scottish Health Survey uses a different approach to measuring food intake and dietary composition. The 2021 survey found that, on average, 22% of adults in Scotland met the five-a-day target for fruit/vegetable intake, and that this has been fairly stable since 2003. This might indicate that the NHSGGC survey results, which are 'self reported', over-estimate the number of portions people eat per day. 

The information shown above is based on survey samples, i.e. based on only a subset of people in each area. As with all analysis from survey data, there is a degree of uncertainty around how estimates from a subset of people accurately reflect the data from all individuals.

Adult fruit and vegetable consumption across Scottish Cities

Lifestyle diet SCOT SEX 2020Around one quarter of adults in Glasgow ate the recommended five or more portions of fruit or vegetables in the previous day. This is slightly higher than the Scotland-wide figure, but lower than Edinburgh (33%). Women were more likely than men to eat the recommended five or more portions of fruit or vegetables in the previous day across Scotland. Note that figures for Dundee cannot be shown because the sample of respondents was too small.

This page was last updated in September 2024.