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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

  • 2024/25 estimates suggest that 28.8% of adults (aged 16+) in Lancashire-12 are meeting the '5-a-day' fruit and vegetable consumption recommendation, significantly lower than the England value (31.4%). It is estimated that significantly lower proportions of adults consume 5 fruit or veg a day in Burnley (21.1%), Preston (22.3%), Pendle (23.3%), and Hyndburn (24.4%) when benchmarked with England. Meanwhile significantly higher proportions of the adult population were estimated to be meeting the fruit and vegetable consumption recommendations in Ribble Valley (40.1%), and Wyre (36.6%). 

  • In Blackburn with Darwen under 1 in 4 adults are estimated to eat 5 portions of fruit and veg per day (23.8%) whilst in Blackpool 26.0% do, both are significantly lower than 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.

Page updated July 2026