Healthy eating of 5-a-day among adults
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1. Main facts and figures
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in England, more than half of adults ate 5 or more portions of fruit and vegetables on a usual day (‘5-a-day’) in 2015 (based on the results of the Active People Survey)
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just over half of White adults ate 5-a-day in 2015
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just over a third of Black adults ate 5-a-day in 2015
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the percentage of adults in the Asian, Chinese and Other ethnic groups who ate 5-a-day in 2015 was also significantly lower than the percentage of White adults doing so
Things you need to know
It is unlikely that everyone who responded in the Active People Survey (APS) that they eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables on a usual day (‘5-a-day’) responded accurately. This may be because of factors such as people being unable to accurately recall what they ate.
Fruit and vegetable consumption are also measured by the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) and the Health Survey for England (HSE). The APS is used for this measure because its data can be broken down into more specific categories than the data from the HSE.
When compared with the findings from these other surveys, the APS estimates a higher percentage of people eating 5-a-day. This is found for all ethnic groups except Asians where the APS estimates a lower consumption of 5-a-day than the other surveys. These differences may reflect how these surveys collect their data. The APS is a telephone survey whereas the others ask respondents to complete a personal food diary, or use a face-to-face interview. The APS measure is more simplistic, recording only whole numbers of portions and offering no explanation of portion size, for example. Also, the APS measure does not include the consumption of pulses. This may have an impact on its estimates for Asian people in particular, who tend to have a diet rich in pulses.
The APS is a ‘sample survey’: it collects information from a random sample of the population to make generalisations (reach 'findings’) about the total population.
As with all surveys, the estimates from the APS are subject to a degree of uncertainty as they are based on a sample of the population. The degree of uncertainty is greater when the number of respondents is small, so it will be highest for ethnic minority groups.
The commentary for this data only includes reliable, or ‘statistically significant’, findings. Findings are statistically significant when we can be confident that they can be repeated, and are reflective of the total population rather than just the survey sample.
Specifically, the statistical tests used mean we can be confident that if we carried out the same survey on different random samples of the population, 19 times out of 20 we would get similar findings.
What the data measures
This data provides an estimate of the percentage of adults (aged 16 and older) in England who ate the recommended 5 portions of fruit and vegetables on a usual day (‘5-a-day’) in 2014 and 2015. The results are broken down by ethnicity.
The data source is Sport England’s Active People Survey, which from 2014 included new questions on how many portions of fruit and vegetables respondents ate the previous day.
The 5-a-day recommendation was issued by the National Health Service in 2002.
The ethnic categories used in this data
For this data, the number of people surveyed (the ‘sample size’) was too small to draw any firm conclusions about specific ethnic categories. Therefore, the data is broken down into the following broad groups:
- White
- Mixed
- Asian
- Black
- Chinese
- Other ethnicity
2. Healthy eating of 5-a-day among adults by ethnicity
| Ethnicity | 2014 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|
| % | % | |
| All | 53.5 | 52.3 |
| Asian | 40.7 | 40.0 |
| Black | 38.9 | 36.4 |
| Chinese | 55.1 | 49.6 |
| Mixed | 51.2 | 52.0 |
| Other | 49.5 | 46.7 |
| White | 55.1 | 53.9 |
Download table data for ‘Healthy eating of 5-a-day among adults by ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Healthy eating of 5-a-day among adults by ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Healthy eating of 5-a-day among adults Healthy eating of 5-a-day among adults by ethnicity Summary
This data shows that:
- in England, over half (52.3%) of adults ate 5 or more portions of fruit and vegetables on a usual day (‘5-a-day’) in 2015
- the percentage of adults eating 5-a-day fell from 53.5% in 2014 to 52.3% in 2015 (a drop of 1.2 percentage points)
- 53.9% of White adults ate 5-a-day in 2015, a significantly higher percentage than the England average of 52.3%
- 36.4% of Black adults ate 5-a-day in 2015, significantly lower than the percentage of White adults who ate 5-a-day
- the percentage of adults eating 5-a-day in 2015 was also lower in the Asian, Chinese and Other ethnic groups – at 40.0%, 49.6% and 46.7% respectively – than the percentage of White adults who ate 5-a-day
- the percentage of adults in the White ethnic group who ate 5-a-day decreased between 2014 and 2015, but there were no conclusive differences for other ethnic groups over this period
3. Methodology
The data for this measure is taken from the Active People Survey (APS) in 2014 and 2015.
Respondents to the survey were asked 2 questions about how many portions of fruit and vegetables they eat on a usual day. Respondents were counted as eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables on a usual day (‘5-a-day’) if their responses on the numbers of fruit and vegetables added up to 5 or more.
The survey was conducted by telephone, using landline numbers selected from a database of randomly generated numbers in Great Britain. Only people aged 16 or older were interviewed. Calls were made throughout the year and at different times each day. A high quality random sampling survey design ensures results are representative of the population. Results for 2015 are based on responses from a sample of approximately 170,000 people, with about 159,000 people answering the questions on eating fruits and vegetables in 2014, and 164,000 people in 2015.
Weighting
Surveys collect information from a random sample of the target population to make generalisations (to reach 'findings’) about everyone within that population.
For those findings to be reliable, the sample of people should ideally contain the same mix of age, gender and regional location as the target population.
Where this isn’t the case (because some people haven’t responded, for example) analysts use statistical tools to ‘weight’ the data. Weighting rebalances the survey responses so they represent the target population more accurately. They can then be used to reach meaningful conclusions.
The APS data is weighted to reflect the size and composition of the general population by using the most up-to-date official population data.
Confidence intervals
The confidence intervals for each ethnic group are available in the ‘download the data’ section.
52.3% of adults surveyed in 2015 reported eating 5 or more portions of fruit and vegetables on a usual day (‘5-a-day’). This is a reliable estimate of the percentage of adults in England who ate 5-a-day, but because the APS results are based on a random sample of adults aged 16 or older, it’s impossible to be 100% certain of the true percentage.
It’s 95% certain, however, that somewhere between 52.1% and 52.5% of all adults in England ate 5-a-day in 2015. In statistical terms, this is a 95% confidence interval. This means that if 100 random samples were taken, then 95 times out of 100 the estimate would fall in this range (ie between the upper and lower confidence interval). But 5 times out of 100 it would fall outside this range.
The smaller the survey sample, the more uncertain the estimate and the wider the confidence interval. For example, the number of Chinese people sampled for this survey is relatively small compared with the entire population, so we can be less certain about the estimate for the smaller group. This greater uncertainty for Chinese people is expressed by the wider confidence interval of between 46.0% and 53.3%.
Statistically significant findings have been determined where the 95% confidence intervals of an ethnic group do not overlap when comparing with another ethnic group or between time periods.
The Normal Approximation method for calculating confidence intervals has been used.
For further details of the sampling method, weighting and confidence intervals see the Active People Survey technical report (PDF opens in a new window or tab).
Rounding
Figures have been rounded to 1 decimal point.
Further technical information
The Active People Survey is being replaced with the Active Lives Survey
4. Data sources
Source
Public Health Outcomes Framework - Active people survey
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Public Health England
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The Active People Survey measures participation in sport and active recreation, and provides details of how participation varies from place to place and between different groups in the population. It was carried out on behalf of Sport England by the social research company TNS BMRB.
Secondary source
Active People Survey, Sport England
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Sport England
Publication frequency
No longer published
Purpose of data source
The survey monitored the amount of sport people play. As well as overall strategy and insight, this information underpinned performance management of the national governing bodies
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: ethnicity, year, value, denominator, confidence intervals, unweighted sample size