The residents of Cheam, in south London, portrayed as a down-at-heel district in the BBC radio and television series, spend on average only £85 a year on tobacco and almost 40% participate in a sport.
The analysis, which is based on council wards and will be used to direct public spending to the unhealthiest areas, reveals a sharp north-south divide. It even identifies individual streets with a particularly high concentration of unhealthy residents.
All of Britain’s 25 healthiest wards are located in the home counties, with most concentrated in the London commuter belt. They include Petts Wood in Bromley, Merton village, and Ickenham in Hillingdon.
In England’s most unhealthy ward, Newcastle West, spending on tobacco averages £415 a year per person and 47% of its population are overweight.
A number of other northern towns and cities, including Preston, Rochdale, Hull, Bolton, Middlesbrough and Salford, also have wards in which residents do about half as much exercise and spend up to six times more on cigarettes as those in England’s best neighbourhoods.
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Bad habits are even more entrenched in Scotland. In Bowbridge, Dundee, the unhealthiest ward in Britain, average spending per head on tobacco is £486 — equivalent to almost 100 packets of cigarettes a year. Twenty-three of Britain’s unhealthiest wards are in Scotland, including areas in Perth, Falkirk, Glasgow and Fraserburgh.
The system used to measure the nation’s health has been developed by the American firm Caci. It measures alcohol consumption, smoking, exercise, weight and long-term illness.
Cheam became a fixture in popular culture in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the fictional home of Tony Hancock, who lived at 23 Railway Cuttings.
One resident, Jenny Grafham, 62, said: “I have just come back from Portugal for an aerobics break. I’m going skiing soon, too. When I walk my dog at night you always see the same people jogging, even elderly people, so I’m not surprised we are the healthiest town.”
Roger Mercer, 60, a marketing consultant, agreed: “There are half a dozen gyms in a four-mile radius, two tennis clubs on one road, bowling, squash courts, golf courses.”
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According to the Caci research, just 4.5% of Cheam’s residents are very overweight and fewer than 15% have a long-term illness.
The contrast with Newcastle West is stark. The Scotswood Road, immortalised in the Geordie anthem the Blaydon Races, was once home to 60 pubs, serving the workers of the Vickers Armstrong armaments factories. But the heavy industry has gone and the area has succumbed to a culture of violence and neglect.
Don Clarke, 51, a jobless welder, said: “As soon as they finish work, people go on the drink; and if they aren’t in work, then there’s nothing to do but drink.”
Steven Leck, 28, a barber, said: “The older ones live on pies and pasties, drink and smoke and don’t want to be any different; but it makes them obese and the cigarettes kill them. There are no health food shops here but there are about 10 bakers. We all love our pasties. My grandad says it is not food unless it has a 3in topping of shortcrust pastry.”
There are signs of a change, however, among the younger residents. Selina Wintersgill, 23, said that although she had tried in vain to to stop her father’s 60-a-day habit, she had not had a cigarette for 18 months. “I miss them like hell, but I feel so much more healthy. It’s wonderful.”
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For tables of the top and bottom 10 places, click here