Our response to Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) Content Review 2022

In our response, we focus on the specific areas of the SHeS which provide us with regular data and insight that is invaluable to our core work. These topics include diet, obesity and biological measurements.

Our key asks for upcoming surveys include:

• Maintenance of waist measurement data within the biological measurements module. By combining this data with BMI, we can generate a more accurate and robust predictor of health risks associated with higher weight.
• A more detailed demographic breakdown of diet, and overweight and obesity data. It would be valuable to have access to raw data on specific groups for which there is currently little national-level diet and weight information (e.g. ethnic minorities, all age groups).
• More consistency in diet monitoring questions. The use of Intake24, a diet recall tool, on an annual basis would allow for trends and the effects of external events (e.g. the cost of living crisis) to be seen more easily. Questions covering fruit and vegetable consumption should be maintained on an annual basis as a minimum.
• The SHeS should help set standards and reduce weight stigma by removing stigmatising terms and adopt language recommended by expert groups to describe different categories of weight.

The consultation closed on the 26^th of September 2022.