Survey Says
URBAN LIFE WAVE 01 2009 HIGHLIGHTS
Here are the results from the first main Urban Life survey of 2009.
A big thank-you to all Urban Life members for your participation and enthusiasm in 2009. Your views and opinions were gratefully received and always welcome.
Which way do you swing?
The table below shows how your political support is changing. Conservatives are still the party of the moment, but Conservative support is slightly on the slide, whilst support for Labour- currently in second place - has increased since July.
Who's responsible for the banking crisis?
As we suspected, you think that bankers should be held the most accountable. But 's not to say that the regulators and the government should get off scot free. In fact, you also attribute some blame to the FSA, the government as a whole and Gordon Brown specifically - although to a lesser extent for Gordon Brown.
The bonus culture in the banking sector
With the finger pointed firmly towards bankers, we leapt right in and asked, "Should bonus schemes for bankers be removed completely?" However, only 1 in 3 of you felt this was necessary. When it comes to banks bailed out by the government it's a different story though - nearly 6 in 10 felt bonuses should be scrapped completely in such cases, whilst 3 in 10 felt bonuses should be paid solely to low earners.
Snow day
February 2nd 2009 was a happy day for snowmen up and down the country. On the flip side, the copious amounts of the white stuff meant public transport systems had to come to a halt and large numbers of people couldn't make it into work. Should the council have been better prepared, stocking more salt? This was a bone of contention amongst you - whilst 47% believed the council was as prepared as it could be under the circumstances, 41% felt it could have done more to avert the crisis.
House prices
Nearly 7 in 10 of you expected house prices to continue falling in the next 12 months. Nonetheless, a smaller optimistic group of you (15%) expected house prices to rise.
Grocery shopping
60% of you involved in grocery shopping do a 'main shop' at least once a week and 90% do a 'top up '. 17% of you are very regular 'top-up shoppers' indeed, going a minimum of 4 times a week. 80% of you do your main shop at either Tesco and Sainsbury's, with Tesco getting a slightly larger share.
On average, you spent £65 on all groceries (including toiletries, household goods etc) in the last 7 days. Clearly this varies by life stage, with those of you with kids spending more (£92) and the 18-24, singletons among you spending less (£44).
3 in 4 confessed to being a sucker for price promotions in supermarkets. That's not to say that you're reckless splurgers though; most of you are careful to keep your eye on the price of things, so you know how much you're going to spend at the check-out.
Eating
In the last month 58% of you have downgraded to a more budget brand of food in order to save some pennies. Other things that at least half of you have done to save money are:
- Using promo vouchers for restaurants
- Ordering a take-away or practising your cooking skills instead of eating out
- Renting a DVD instead of going to the cinema.
- In fact, 58% of you agreed that 'staying in is the new going out'!
You like it fresh - you're more likely to eat fresh convenience food/soups/smoothies at least once a week (36% of you) than a traditional ready meal (23%). You're pretty careful what you put into your bodies in general, with 68% of you claiming to often look at nutritional values on food before buying.
77% admit to snacking. Those of you who bring in snacks from home favour the more saintly option of fruit; however those of you who buy snacks as and when throughout the day are more likely to reach for some chocolate. You're much more inclined to snack during the week than on the weekend and the afternoon is the most popular time to do so - 3pm slump perhaps?
72% of you correctly identified that Alan Shearer was the celebrity who'd never featured in an advert for a supermarket
When we asked you which city turns its river green to celebrate St Patrick's day, the answer was less obvious; with 36% correctly answering Chicago, but 49% thinking it was Dublin. Apparently you wouldn't be wrong if you did answer Dublin, as the river Liffey has been dyed to mark the occasion in the past.
Thinking back to the Oscars, you did well in telling us that 1929 was the year the very first Oscars ceremony took place - 44% of you got that right.
Obesity in the UK - who's to blame?
49% of you told us you felt that people should take responsibility for their actions, only 1% felt that it was solely the responsibility of the food industry, although 35% felt that it was down to a mixture of the two (individual and food industry.) The rest did not have an opinion either way. Here's a taster of what you had to say:
People should take responsibility for their actions:
"People have got lazier and prefer to go for the quick fix rather than cook from fresh at home"
"Ooops I've eaten ten burgers and now I'm fat - so I'm going to blame someone else ....get real"
"We should be educated but people have the entitlement to choose. I do not believe you can censor the food industry. Where would it end? Rationing books"
"There is so much media and education about obesity and healthy eating, no-one has any excuse to blame anyone apart from themselves."
"I feel sorry for people that struggle with their weight and think they need to take responsibility for that although I don't believe it is just a matter of diets or in extreme cases gastric bands I think a lot of it is linked to state of mind i.e. deeper psychological issues, previous abuse or depression and find comfort in food"
"Eat less cake, take exercise. It's not rocket science."
"I don't believe it is the fault of the food industry. It is a lot down to sedentary lifestyles, caused by people working more & having access to transport."
The food industry should take responsibility
"It's like drugs - as shown in Supersize Me, much of the cheap, unhealthy food is deliberately created to be addictive. Whilst in the case of drugs one has the opportunity to choose whether or not to use them, in the case of food, it's not really an informed choice"
"The government should force the food industry to label theIr products so that they are easy to understand. They don't really care about their customers, only profit. This culture has to stop."
"Healthy options are difficult to find, expensive to buy and the content of foods and quantities are close to impossible to measure. Food has become too easy to access and consume. That same availability needs to be maintained but healthy options may need to be imposed in order to wean us off our genetic predisposition for fat and sugars."
"The food industry is only interested in making money, not the health of the nation. Often they will use 'bad' ingredients just to make their products taste nicer."
Mixture of both
"Being overweight myself I know it is my own responsibility to eat sensibly or face the consequences. However some foods are marketed as being healthy when they are not. And it's difficult sometimes to eat as healthily I'd like due to long hours at work and travel."
"People are largely responsible for their own actions; parents in the case of obese children. However the food industry should make more of an effort to bring the costs of healthy food down to make them a more accessible option to low income families. Organic food for example is often so much more expensive than the supermarket choices, that no matter how healthy you want to be you have to weigh up the value against the price difference."
"I feel that the culture in this country makes it harder for people to take responsibility for their actions because the wrong foods are the cheapest and also the food industry turns ordinary food into ***** by adding a whole load of hidden fat and stuff that has no business being in food."