Prevalence of travel and dietary behaviours with health and environmental co-benefits: a cross-sectional analysis of UK Biobank

Abstract

BackgroundThe urgency of climate change has increased the need to promote lifestyles with health and environmental co-benefits; however, most research has focused on single behaviours in isolation, at the expense of understanding healthy, low-carbon lifestyles more broadly. This study aimed to provide some initial evidence on the prevalence and patterning of healthy, low-carbon lifestyles in the UK, by identifying clusters of travel and dietary behaviour with joint implications for human health and carbon emissions. MethodsWe analysed self-reported, cross-sectional data from a sex-stratified random sample of adults in UK Biobank (aged 39–72 years) who completed a 24 h dietary recall questionnaire between April 29, 2009, and June 29, 2012. Travel behaviour included transport modes for commuting and non-work journeys (car, public transport, walking, cycling) and daily driving time. Dietary behaviour included consumption of red and processed meat, consumption of fruit and vegetables, and vegetarian status. We used latent class analysis to identify clusters of behaviours and characterised each group as higher-carbon or lower-carbon on the basis of its indicators. Information criteria and interpretability were used to select best-fitting models, which were cross-validated in ten additional random samples. Findings211,049 adults completed the questionnaire and there were 4220 in our random sample. We identified ten different clusters of behaviour among women (n=2324) and nine among men (1896). The largest clusters (696 men [36·7%], 772 women [33·2%]) were characterised by more car travel (1–3 h per day) and high consumption of red and processed meat (>1 serving per day). Overall, only 74 participants (3·4%) were leading entirely healthy, low-carbon lifestyles (female cyclists, vegetarians who used public transport); however, several diverse clusters led partly or predominantly healthy, low-carbon lifestyles (362 men [19·1%], 567 women [24·4%]). InterpretationUsing a novel approach that combined several travel and dietary behaviours, we have shown that wholly healthy, low-carbon lifestyles are rare in this population, since most of the sample engaged in multiple high-carbon behaviours or more mixed behaviours. These findings provide, for the first time to our knowledge, a more comprehensive understanding of the patterning of health-relevant and climate-relevant behaviours in the UK and give greater insights into the full impacts of people's lifestyles. Future research should focus on clarifying the sociodemographic determinants of these behaviour patterns and on identifying which segments might be most amenable to change. FundingMAS was supported by a PhD studentship from the University of York as part of the Health of Populations and Ecosystems (HOPE) project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/L003015/1), awarded to HG and PCLW.