Some regional variations in dietary patterns in a random sample of British adults

Abstract

Comparison was made of the reported frequency of consumption or choice of 30 food items by 8860 adults in the 11 standard regions of Great Britain, with the use of log-linear analysis to allow for the age, sex, social class and smoking habit variations between the regions. The South-East was taken as the base region against which the others were compared. The number of food items for which there were significant differences from the South-East were Scotland 23, North 25, North-West and Yorkshire/Humberside 20, Wales 19, West Midlands 15, East Midlands 10, East Anglia 8, South-West 7 and Greater London 9. Overall the findings confirm a North/South trend in relation to eating habits, even when demographic and smoking-habit variations are taken into account, with the frequent consumption of many fruit and vegetable products being much less common and of several high-fat foods (chips, processed meats and fried food) more common in Scotland, Wales and the northern part of England. In most regions there was a significantly lower frequency of consumption of fresh fruit, fruit juice, 'brown' bread, pasta/rice, poultry, skimmed/semi-skimmed milk, light desserts and nuts, and a higher consumption of red meat, fish and fried food than in the South-East.