Despite tough times, the Scottish public favours healthy diet policies

In August, we commissioned the Diffley Partnership to run public polling on policy interventions intended to help more people in Scotland to access and afford healthy diets. Over one thousand people responded to the survey which included nine questions relating to policy proposals and how much support respondents would offer to each.

Overall, there was more support across all nine of the proposals compared to those opposed, with some policies having strikingly more public backing. For example, an intervention to ensure special offers and promotions in shops are applied to healthy foods and everyday essentials had 87% of respondents in support. Restricting where unhealthy foods can be displayed in shops (e.g. checkouts, end of aisles) saw 65% of people in favour, and 61% supported adding calorie information to menus and apps when ordering food online (60% when eating out). Other policies with higher levels of support included banning sponsorship of unhealthy food and drink at sports events, restricting price promotions of unhealthy foods in shops and online, and banning adverts for unhealthy foods in outdoor spaces such as on billboards.

We recently responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation on restricting promotions of unhealthy food and drink, and the results of this polling were important for strengthening our policy asks. We were able to provide evidence for our positions on promotions and also show that the Scottish public largely supports them.

In our response process, we took a look back at similar polling carried out in the area of food promotions to see how responses compared over time. In 2016, Cancer Research UK found 66% of people thought price promotions on junk food should be restricted. Four years on, in 2020, Food Standards Scotland asked their own variation of the same question and found 58% of people to be in support. Judging by our latest polling, public opinion looks to have remained fairly consistent over time, despite recent social and economic challenges.

Our current polling results on the topic of food promotions could be seen as surprising. The ongoing crises in the UK and Scotland are pushing up everyday costs, and price promotions on food could be considered even more valuable to customers. However, evidence shows that food promotions are unfairly skewed towards less healthy products and actually cause us to spend more money than we otherwise would on these foods, negatively impacting both our health and wallets. People in Scotland clearly are aware that promotions in their current form do us more harm than good, and a large number of us would rather see promotional deals on healthier foods instead.

Even in these hard times, the Scottish public recognise the importance of good health and the need for policies which allow us to achieve it.