Eat well for life
Help for healthier eating
It can be difficult to know how to eat more healthily and how much to eat. Find out more about healthy eating and portion sizes:
- Maintain a healthy weight to prevent life-changing health conditions
- Get your food portions right
- Healthy food swaps to lower sugar, salt and fats in your diet
Children and young adults:
- Change4life has easy ways to eat well and move more for kids
- Download the Change4life food scanner app on the App Store or Google Play
- Eat well for babies, children and teens
Medical conditions and eating disorders:
- Beat for eating disorders
- Dietary information for advice and patient webinars about what to eat and drink if you have a medical condition
- Manage alcohol and lower your health risks
Eatwell guide
To understand how to achieve a healthy, balanced diet, visit the eatwell guide. It covers:
- food and diet
- recipes and tips
- digestive health
The eatwell guide helps you to get the right balance of the different food groups over a day or even a week.
Learn about eating your five a day and how to add fruit and vegetables into your daily food choices.
Five a day
Tips for healthy eating
Eating a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of maintaining good health, and will help you feel your best.
This means eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions, and consuming the right amount of food and drink to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight. Try to cook from scratch. Eat real food, not processed. Bulk cooking and saving portions for when you are in a rush can help with this.
People with special dietary needs or a medical condition should ask their doctor or a registered dietitian for advice.
People and children over the age of 5 should try to:
- eat at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables every day
- include higher fibre starchy foods like potatoes, bread, rice or pasta when you are active or exercising. Too much of these foods, such as including them in every meal will lead to weight gain.
- have some dairy or dairy alternatives (such as soya drinks)
- eat some beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other protein
- drink plenty of water, non-caffine or non-sugary drinks (at least 6 to 8 glasses a day)