The Broken Plate is The Food Foundation’s annual flagship report, presenting ten vital signs revealing the health of our food system and its impact on our lives.
It demonstrates that the UK’s food system and our food environments have led the UK into a national health crisis, with children and households on low incomes suffering the severest health consequences.
Each year The Food Foundation publishes a new edition of The Broken Plate, providing updated statistics for the ten key metrics and new commentary on the direction of travel.
Businesses and Governments must act to ensure that the environment in which we live supports everyone in being able to access and afford a healthy and sustainable diet.
“Improving healthy eating requires, at the minimum, an understanding of influences on nutrition and its consequences; and monitoring of progress. Broken Plate does both of these admirably and fulfils an urgent national need.”
Sir Michael Marmot
Publications
What’s the future for every 100 children born in 2021 if nothing changes?
Key Stats
Advertising spend on fruit and vegetables remains very low with just 2.5% of total food and soft drink advertising spend going towards fruit and vegetables
The poorest fifth of UK households would need to spend 40% of their disposable income on food to meet Eatwell Guide costs. This compared to just 7% for the richest fifth.
Children living in deprived communities are shorter than children living in wealthier communities by the time they reach age 10-11
25% of workers in the food sector earn the minimum wage or below compared to 11% of all UK workers
1 in 4 places to buy food are fast food outlets. The proportion of fast food outlets is higher in the most deprived local authorities compared to the least deprived.
Children in the most deprived fifth of households are almost twice as likely to have obesity as those in the least deprived fifth of households age 4-6
92% of cereals and 96% of yogurts marketed towards children contain high or medium levels of sugar
More healthy foods are nearly 3 times as expensive as less healthy foods calorie for calorie
There are almost 10,000 diabetes-related amputations carried out on average per year, an increase of 24% in the past 5 years
22% of ready meals are vegetarian or plant-based with a welcome drop in price for vegetarian and plant-based meals since last year's survey
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