The junk food capital of the UK has been revealed

Have you ever ordered a burger so extravagant you had to stop eating partway through because your heart started hurting?

Have you ever been to a pizza restaurant that topped the pie with falafel, jalapenos and kebab-shop yoghurt and chili sauces?

Have you ever been to a city where one street has an entire street devoted to chips, and which has one of the UK’s best chippies in an entirely different part of town?

I have done all of these things, and they were all in the same city.

That city, my friends, has now been named as the UK’s junk food capital.

According to a new survey from VoucherCodes, as reported by ITV, Cardiff has claimed the dubious honour of being named number one for junk food consumption.

The status was based on the amount residents spend on fast food and takeaways each month, with the Welsh capital topping the tree with an average of £86.80 – that equates to more than £1,000 per year.

That figure is even more impressive when you consider prices are noticeably cheaper than a number of other cities in the UK, meaning the volume of takeaways required to reach that figure is… well, ‘impressive’ probably isn’t the right word, actually, but you know what we’re getting at here.

“What the spending map shows is that we are a nation who likes to treat ourselves. However, what classifies as a ‘treat’ is very dependent on where you live,” VoucherCodes’ Anita Naik said.

Case in point: those in Newcastle spend £1,670 per year on holidays and mini-breaks, while Cardiff’s junk food total is less than the £1,179 a year Londoners throw at clothes, shoes, handbags and accessories.

Different people do have different concepts of ‘treats’, though, as Naik explains, and Oxford residents average just under a grand a year on gym memberships and classes.

Whatever floats your boat.

(Images: Herson Rodriguez/Rex Features/iStock)