AIBU to think poor health in later life is a UK problem?

This article has a link to the report:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/27/people-in-uk-spend-fewer-years-in-good-health-than-a-decade-ago-study-finds

We are a bit as a whole, it takes effort to eat well and exercise. Add food types which can be addictive and dc picking up bad habits.

On a thread someone mentioned 20 odd year olds going to the gym and eating well, I can see that with dc and friends but not sure how wide ranging that is.

OK, but you have had 1) the education to not poison yourself with the chicken, 2) the money to house yourself somewhere with both a fridge and a cooker that allows you to store the food safely and cook it appropriately 3) the opportunity to develop a palate that finds that sort of food acceptable 4) the time to cook it 5) the energy to plan it 6) the financial wherewithal to buy e.g. any spices which are cheap per serving, but expensive in the initial outlay when finances are very tight. I too have all of those things, with the possible exception of the energy for planning, which is thin on the ground with two FT parents, me with a "big job" two school aged kids with complexities, and a lot of work related travel. I'm not having a go at you. But we are both privileged, and a failure to recognise that leaves us with the same lack of society level solutions we already have, and the top 0.1% cashing in on the ways they are structuring society to wreck our health and wellbeing, while the rest of us point fingers at each other.

No. It’s as bad in America. 🤷‍♀️

I think the fractured nature of society/households/family is a big part of it.

In the UK, I get the feeling that kids move away to more distant universities in larger numbers than some other countries where they either don't go to Uni (better local alternative further education options) or go to a more local uni meaning they can continue to live at home.

Then, we come to decent jobs, and the centralisation of so many jobs in London and the immediate vicinity in the South East meaning so many people having to leave their home towns to get a decent job, especially if they live in rural areas or the regions.

It leaves entire communities run down, with elderly people having few or no close relatives, so no one to care for them or advocate for them, fewer local amenities, etc.

Personally, I think we need a massive drive to rejuvenate all the rural areas and regions and finally start to create a movement away from London (and not just to another big city like Manchester or Birmingham). We need to inject life back into the forgotten towns and cities and thus in turn, improve facilities and amenities like parks, recreation, hospitals etc.

I don’t think it is necessarily the school’s job to teach cooking and nutrition. There just aren’t enough hours in the day and will it make a difference? I think the factors that prevent a child from learning healthy eating is beyond a 30min lesson per week. Engagement from parents, time, money etc are factors. When you are tired and worked a long day, it is much much easier to stick a pizza in the oven for ten minutes than cook from scratch. Batch cooking in advance requires you to have enough money to buy multiple days worth of food in one go, time to cook it and space to store it.

One things that may help is reduce the ease of access to unhealthy foods, particularly for children e.g buying sweets, pastries, milkshakes etc on the way to from school.

A lot of eating is done not because of hunger but temptation. I see it in my own children when they ask for a snack and if I suggest fruit it seems not to be the right answer.

The lack of access to good healthcare really doesn't help
We do have excellent healthcare in the UK. The reason why access is a major issue is because of the sheer number of unhealthy people pass 60 years old.

Why so many years unhealthy? Because we are a lazy society which values immediate gratification over delayed benefits.

That requires:
Knowing how to cook this kind of stuff.
Buying and using the stuff in time - which requires forward planning. If you are working random shifts at your employer's whim, that broccoli may go off in the fridge before you have the energy to cook it in a meal.

A loaf of Asda white bread is 74p and a tub of marge is 95p. That might be breakfast for a week for a family, but is utter crap.
A frozen pizza is 1.65 and two garlic bread loaves 85p. All carbs and fat, but it will fill the family and be quick and easy, a complete meal in two packets, no need to peel and chop veg, or handle multiple pans and multiple ingredients with fiddly timings to get it all cooked at the same time.

Don't under-estimate the effects of depression and exhaustion.

OP, I have missed out reading a lot of posts but you missed out levels of poverty and the poverty gap as the biggest single contributor. Until we sort out poverty linked life expectancy we are stuffed. The article does indeed point this out.

It's the life expectancy and the HLA of people in areas such as Blackpool with low wage economies, high smoking and drink related health issues, gig economy and shift working workforces and high unemployment that are of concern. The BBC 's yoga picture made me laugh. Do they think a bit of yoga will help the zero hours contract warehouse workers in Blackpool?

And yet, governments want people to work longer.

Poverty. The answer is always poverty.

Only the US does worse than us of the 21 countries in the study and we all know about their huge inequalities and their horrifically divisive healthcare system.

It's an interesting (and depressing) study. I live in a wealthy area of London and everyone I know in their 50s, 60s, 70s are going strong. My parents, in their late 80s still travel, do lots of cultural stuff, have an active social life and, though retired, are still involved with their professions on some level.

In my volunteer work, though, I come across a lot of people who are not nearly so lucky. I agree with the earlier assessments about poor quality housing, inadequate nutrition and social isolation. I also think that the NHS, while fabulous at some things, is absolutely shameful about looking ahead/preventative care. I agree with the PP who said we don't, as a society, look at the bigger picture, 20 year plans.

It would be really interesting to know the economics of more preventative care - necessary breast reductions, bunion surgery, dental care. I'm almost certain that a person who needs any of those things and doesn't get it will cost the system more across their lifetime than they would if we footed the cost up front.

Our healthcare system is built around treating heath conditions rather than identifying issues early and stopping them from becoming a long term problem. We put sticking plasters on things without identifying the root cause.

Getting older is inevitable, but there’s a lot people can do to help themselves. Staying strong and active into old age should be a priority. The younger generation appears to be turning the tide in that respect. It will be interesting to see how they fare their old age.

People expect the NHS to cover every single thing related to their health. So they never pursue things themselves because they ‘shouldn’t have to’ pay. As such people do not see a physio, dietitian, movement specialist, podiatrist etc and they let their health and pain and comorbidities compound into ill health which medicine then cannot fix. Combined with doing no exercise, stress, lack of access to treatment due to waiting lists and poverty you have a massive unhealthy population.

This is very true. I am a dog owner and this winter just gone was an absolute SLOG. Bare minimum exercise for all of us, to avoid growing gills. I live in a gorgeous part of the world with miles of open moorland to explore. Don't go anywhere near it for 7 months of the year as it just sucks your wellies off.

I think it's related to Radon & UPF.

Probably, and yet there's another thread running at the moment filled with people who don't think they need to supplement Vitamin D...

Do your two friends live in Richmond, Surrey, because if they do, they will live significantly longer, in better health than their counterparts in disadvantaged (former industrial areas) areas (Richmond was named in research mentioned on the BBC today) We need to tackle the growing disparity between the quality of lives led in different geographic areas in our small country.

Who has the time to take care of themselves? I'm trying to do bare minimum exercise at the moment on top of a full time job, and being a mum, wife and daughter. I need y'all to know most urgently that my weekly cardio is the first thing to give.

Who the fuck has time to sow the seeds for healthy later life?

Yes and also economic inequality and UPFs.

What classes as poor health for the purposes of this study?

Lack of vitamin D?

This isn't true. Protein and fresh veg are cheap. Steaming some brocolli over a pan of rice costs almost nothing. Last night we had baked chicken legs in a couple of spoons of yoghurt, with brown rice and brocolli. Cost about £1.80 or 90p each. £1 each if you add in money for the electric and washing up. You couldn't buy a portion of chips for that.

People do have a screen addiction but IMO part of that is because they're lazy to begin with. People can't be arsed to make an effort to get up and do things - they'd rather sit on the sofa, eat and doom-scroll because it's a) easier and b) more immediately rewarding.

There is a very interesting report which is often referred to as The Glasgow effect which looked into causes of poor mortality levels in some areas compared to other comparable cities. Some parts of the city have the lowest mortality rates in Europe in which poor health can begin as low as 45. Conversely these areas are right next to areas of high mortality rates and healthy living of 20 years plus, i.e into 60’s/70’s.

The report talks of multigenerational poverty, poor housing, poor economic decision making and many other factors.

It is not as easy to say that people need to be able to cook/exercise more which indeed can help, but to look far deeper into the problem and governments don’t like to do this.

So do go and google this report as it is very interesting and may help realise the huge complexity in this.

I'd also say that DHs mum has a different upbringing and is in a different socio-economic group.
Low paid manual labour, the daily grind. Struggling to make ends meet. Often combined with poor grade food, smoking and drinking (very broad strokes I know). It's not just one thing, it's many.
I'm not sure many people want to exercise after 10 hours standing at a production line. They are shattered. It's hard and physical but not actually exercise.

Have your children been through school recently? Children are taught to make chocolate brownies if you are lucky. They might be taught to use a set of scales and a knife, but not taught how to prepare different veg.

Most schools don't have the facilities or the staff which means most teens can no more make soup or an omelette than they can fly.

Nor do they teach basic nutrition or dietary care.
I live in a m/c area where few are struggling financially but a lot of ds' friends are overweight because their parents feed them junk, through ignorance. It certainly isn't a lack of love.

Read the research. This started after 2010, along with the decline in the average age on death. Guess what happened in 2010?