Healthy eating for all Barriers to healthy eating

In January 2009 we asked 2,102 people, representing the UK adult population, what the barriers are to healthy eating and what they want to change.

Healthy food is expensive

Only 54% of people said they find it easy to eat healthily outside home.

Unsurprisingly, given the economic downturn, price played an important role in people's food choices. More than three in five people who were trying to choose a healthy diet were also watching how much they spent on food. 

80% of our respondents thought supermarkets should make healthier choices easier. The most common things people wanted to see were cheaper, healthier options and more healthy options included in supermarket promotions.

Eating out is more difficult

People interested in healthier eating were finding it much easier at home (88%) than eating out (just 54%). Younger people were more likely to find it difficult to make healthier choices at any time, whereas people with children were more likely to struggle when eating out.

The price of healthier foods, finding something that the family would eat and the fact that people preferred the taste of unhealthy options were the main reasons people found it hard.

Manufacturers and caterers are unhelpful

Food manufacturers were seen as less helpful than retailers when it came to helping consumers eat healthily. Less than half of respondents thought manufacturers make it easy to choose healthier foods and a quarter thought they make it difficult.

Catering outlets were seen as being even worse, with just one in three thinking that they made healthy choices easy and 39% thinking that they made it difficult. 82% wanted manufacturers to take more action and 78% wanted action from caterers.

Find out what Which? is doing to put more healthy food options on the table.