FSA workshop seeks to bridge the dietary gap

Monday 19 November 2001

A diet dominated by chips, crisps and sugar is putting some of our children and young people at greater risk of coronary heart disease and cancers, simply because their social and economic circumstances lend their families to choose less healthy alternatives.

Delegates at a workshop in Powys this Wednesday (21 November) will also hear that the result is a widening gap in health between the most and least deprived communities.

The Food Standards Agency Wales’ nutrition strategy workshop at the Metropole Hotel, Llandrindod Wells aims to encourage a multi-organisation approach to discussion and endorsement of actions to overcome the root causes of diet and health inequalities. These views will help the FSA develop its nutrition strategy for Wales, a task set for the Agency by National Assembly for Wales’ Health and Social Services Minister Jane Hutt.

Delegates will be looking at how access to a healthier, more balanced diet can be impaired not only by cost but by ethnicity, disability, location and a lack in basic cooking skills. It will consider data from the FSA’s own Welsh Consumer Surveys and those of other organisations, which have already revealed that:

• The average daily intake of fruit and vegetables in the lowest income and social class is significantly lower than those in other, higher groups. Those in the lowest class eat just 2.4 portions per day – less than half the daily recommended amount for a healthy diet; (1)
• Although health overall has been improving in Wales over the last 20 years, the gap in health between the most and least deprived communities is actually widening. Instead of achieving the WHO target of reducing health inequality by 25 per cent by the year 2000, it is likely that there has been an increase of 25 per cent; (2)
• Children in lower socio-economic groups are more likely to eat chips, crisps, table sugar and sweets than higher group counterparts; (3)
• People in the South Wales valleys eat fewer portions of fruit and vegetables in other parts of Wales.(4)

Joy Whinney, Director of the Food Standards Agency Wales said:

"In selecting the socially disadvantaged as a priority group for action, it is apparent that the FSA Wales nutrition strategy needs to take account of the root causes of poor diet and health inequality. It needs to address the broader economic and structural barriers to change.

"We already know that poor diet directly impacts upon health and is a contributory factor in the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease. We must now look to the future, drawing on the expertise and experience of those attending our workshop on Wednesday. To effect an improvement in socially disadvantaged communities, we must look in detail at dietary habits and consider how we might change them for the better."

News contact: Kathryn Corcoran (029) 2067 8915

Notes to editors

(1). The FSA’s Welsh Consumer Surveys 2000 found that the average daily intake of fruit and vegetables by those in the lowest income and social class was significantly less compared to those from the highest income and social class groups (2.4 and 2.6 portions, 3.3 and 4.2 portions respectively).

(2). Taken from the National Assembly for Wales’ Better Health, Better Wales, May 1998.

(3). UK National Diet and Nutrition Surveys of children aged 4 to 18 years showed children in lower socio-economic groups are more likely to eat foods such as chips, crisps, table sugar and sweets than their higher group counterparts.

(4). The Welsh Health Survey of 1995 revealed that people in the South Wales Valleys area ate less fruit and vegetables than in other areas of Wales. Rhondda Cynon Taff was also identified as the local authority area with the highest level of people eating fried foods made with solid fats.