Food and nutrition

A healthy diet can help to support good physical and mental health, whilst a poor diet has been linked to a number of long term illnesses including cancer, coronary heart disease, excess weight, hypertension (high blood pressure) and type 2 diabetes.

Nutrition advice advocates that balance is the key to a healthy diet, and eating a wide variety of food and drink in the right proportions will help achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

Key findings

• 2023/24 estimates suggest that 29.3% of adults (aged 16+) in Lancashire-12 are meeting the '5-a-day' fruit and vegetable consumption recommendation, significantly lower than the England average (31.3%). It is estimated that significantly lower proportions of adults consume 5 fruit of veg a day in Burnley (21.5%), South Ribble (24.8%), Hyndburn (25%), and Pendle (27.6%) when benchmarked with England.
•  In Blackburn with Darwen under 1 in 5 adults are estimated to eat 5 fruit and veg per day (18.9%) whilst in Blackpool 1 in 4 adults do (25.2%), both are significantly lower than for England.
• Public Health England calculated that in 2024 Lancashire had 1,686 fast food outlets, giving the area a crude outlet concentration rate of 132.7 (per 100,000 of the population), significantly above the England rate (115.9).
• Preston (147.7), Burnley (167.0), Hyndburn (172.1), and Rossendale (185.9) all have significantly higher rates of fast-food outlets per 100,000 people whilst in West Lancashire (89.5) the rate of outlet is significantly lower than England.
• In Blackpool the concentration of fast-food outlets (226.3) is the third highest in the country whilst in Blackburn with Darwen (161.3) the rate is also significantly higher than for England.
• In 2015 Lancashire County Council conducted a comprehensive lifestyle survey as part of their Health behaviours joint strategic needs assessment (JSNA), with over 13,000 responses from across the Lancashire-12 area. On the subject of diet and nutrition, the survey found under a fifth (17%) of respondents eat fast food or take away meals at least once a week.

For additional county, unitary and district data and further information please see below. Please select the geography type to see what indicators are available as not all are provided across the different footprints.

If the area has defaulted to 'Counties & UAs in North East region', click on the down arrowhead next to 'Geography', select 'Region' and then 'North West'. This is an issue which is not within our control, apologies.

Page updated July 2025