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

I am doing something productive! 😆 I am waiting for my dc to finish their extracurricular and walking around the park/doing lunges & squats & using MNs to stop me getting bored whilst I walk in circles.

But I can’t fit that in everyday & I would rather do fun exercise as opposed to walking laps

I walk a lot but I have a desk job so want to do more. And my commute is now a drive due to hours & needing to collect dc.

So many factors:

terrible weather for being active
huge majority of jobs being sedentary
poor public transport resulting in driving everywhere
time poor which impacts food and exercise choices
how we socialise is alcohol based - it is a part of our culture
ever increasing junk food
nhs getting worse and worse

You say you're pushed for time yet how much time have you spent responding on this thread instead of doing something more productive?

I agree with you. I also think the demise of the high street plays a part - how many of us have no choice but to drive to a big out of townTesco/Asda to do our food shop (or get it delivered) because there's nowhere else to buy food from?

It's got warmer if anything.

"Who is going to choose to walk to the shops or whatever when they can just hop in the car and stay warm and dry?"
In the past people have walked to the shops whatever the weather and that probably contributed to lower obesity rates and healthier old age.

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.

@marsbarslice people are pushed for time though. I’m pushed for time!

You can think it’s just because people want instant gratification but as I said I don’t agree.

Has the weather changed a lot since past decades when we were healthier, though?

I think the range across different socioeconomic groups is massive. My mum grew up in poverty, one of 12 children, worked 3 low paid jobs (factory/cleaning) jobs and raised 2 kids on not much. As life got easier and she was able to slow down her health really deteriorated. She is obese from years of poor diet, lung issues from years of smoking, has never exercised as never had time and was a social drinker. She now sits for hours a day watching TV or playing bingo. She potters out everyday to go to a social group. She is 72 and it feels like when she got to 70 her mindset changed. She acts old. Her mum died at 70.
Compare that to me. University educated, don't drink or smoke, understand about diet and exercise. We are going to have very different outcomes.
The current older generation are post war babies. Food was fuel. It was about filling bellies. High fat, fried food was ok because snacks didn't exist. Life was more active. Gadgets wash our clothes and dishes, we have Hoover's and steam mops. We have cars. Our lifestyle has undergone massive changes in the last 60 years and our bodies/mindset have struggled to adapt.

Hypotheses about laziness are completely unhelpful as they just beg the question of why some countries would be lazier than others.

I don't think they are unhelpful, though.

For example - the weather in the UK doesn't help - who wants to go out after work and exercise when it's pissing down rain and freezing cold? Who is going to choose to walk to the shops or whatever when they can just hop in the car and stay warm and dry?

Whereas in (for example) Australia, warm, sunny weather and long, light evenings mean people are much more likely to want to go to the beach, or for a swim, or to play tennis, or take their kids to the park.

Location is another thing - if you live in a city with no green space, you're less likely to want to go out for a walk than if you have fields, mountains or beaches on your doorstep.

Inequality and poor nutrition are major drivers. Not just the high fat, high salt, high UPF aspect but also prenatal nutrition, low breastfeeding rates, poor infant nutrition and abysmal child nutrition. This is down, in part, to the UK's recovery from WWII which, even as class barriers and inequality dropped meant Britain struggled to a much greater extent as other OECD countries recovered. And it had a lasting impact on UK food culture across the board, increasing acceptance of cheap, low quality processed foods. But then the resurgence of inequality saw the gains in food quality that have been made since the 80s entirely miss the least well off.

We have massive cultural issues from the last 40 years (ingrained over the preceding centuries) as gains that could have improved the long term quality of life were spunked up the wall on short term hedonism. This stemmed in large part from Thatcher's policies in the 80s, which were then cemented into place by Blair's glossy pretenses at equality (which mainly just papered over massive structural inequality by borrowing from the future).

We've failed to invest in the NHS adequately and so have lots of people whose health could be better and require less investment at the tail end of life now needing significant care. And we seem to baulk at analysis that would bring more fairness or economic utility to how its money is spent.

I think a lot of it is lifestyle. If I look back to my childhood in the 60s/70s fewer people had cars so children walked everywhere. My mum cooked meals from scratch as well as working full time, there wasn't the processed convenient food that you get now or takeaways.

We played out all the time, no computers, mobile phones, ipads etc.

I think lifestyles today are more sedentary and it's so easy to order a takeaway to be delivered.

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.

A 40 hour working week still leaves us with 128 hours to exercise, eat well, sleep, socialise and do whatever else we need to do. It's hardly like we're pushed for time

I think this is too simplistic, I’m trying to fit in more exercise but finding it so tough. I already get up 5:45, don’t work p/t, juggle pick ups and drop offs with DH. I had planned to reduce my hours but finances are tight now.

Hypotheses about laziness are completely unhelpful as they just beg the question of why some countries would be lazier than others.

I don't think they are unhelpful, though.

For example - the weather in the UK doesn't help - who wants to go out after work and exercise when it's pissing down rain and freezing cold? Who is going to choose to walk to the shops or whatever when they can just hop in the car and stay warm and dry?

Whereas in (for example) Australia, warm, sunny weather and long, light evenings mean people are much more likely to want to go to the beach, or for a swim, or to play tennis, or take their kids to the park.

Location is another thing - if you live in a city with no green space, you're less likely to want to go out for a walk than if you have fields, mountains or beaches on your doorstep.