People in UK spend fewer years in good health than a decade ago, study finds

[GingerBeverage]

People in the UK are spending fewer years in good health than a decade ago, prompting concern that the population’s health is “going backwards”.
The sharp decline in Britain’s healthy life expectancy, the amount of time someone spends free of illness or disability, is in sharp contrast to its recent rise in most other rich countries globally.
The UK population’s health is poor, getting worse and not undergoing the same steady improvement seen in countries such as Japan, Norway and Spain, according to a new analysis of healthy life expectancy in 21 countries by the Health Foundation thinktank. It went up by an average of four-tenths of a year across the 20 other comparable countries.

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

What's different about the UK compared to countries with improving rates?

Tories.

Exactly.

But surely everywhere has this. Not everywhere has a disability system that's so traumatic for the disabled or a housing crisis to the extent that we do. Or the levels of inequality we have. Although our diet may indeed be worse than elsewhere.

Diet
Smoking /alcohol
NHS. (Or lack of)
Stress/ mental health issues
lack of exercise

Very little preventative care. The nhs is there for you when it all goes to shit but they're not there to prevent it happening in the first place. People are on waiting lists for years while there declining and the nhs will only move you up the list when it becomes urgent. Also families now usually have 2 working parents which means less time and energy for cooking healthy food. Fewer kids play out so are sat on screens instead of exercise.

The NHS is now useless for the sort of 'minor' problems that come with age and can lead to major problems, including lack of mobility. If you can afford to spend a few hundred quid on a private physio, psychiatrist, podiatrist etc it makes a huge difference and keeps you active. I think other European countries with insurance based schemes may handle this better?

My health has deteriorated since having kids. I love to exercise and did so a lot before having kids and now i am struggling for time. I start work at 8am and then finish to do school pick up. And lack of sleep.

Stress with trying to fit everything in.

NHS is also a factor. I have had to pay for private surgery for both my kids because the NHS has let them down. And they are little kids. So lord knows how much the NHS is letting down everyone else.

I’m not sure how the other countries are different though. I do know in France, they emphasise much more importance on postpartum physical recovery.

This is the problem with this data. It is actually "self-reported" ill-health, so really quite subjective and variable, I would think.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understanding-the-drivers-of-healthy-life-expectancy/understanding-the-drivers-of-healthy-life-expectancy-report

It's in line with official health stats though with rising rates of cancers, obesity, autism and all sorts of other conditions as well as the housing crisis, deaths from despair etc. It all lines up pretty well in my opinion.

Also families now usually have 2 working parents which means less time and energy for cooking healthy food

This is anecdotal. When I lived in the UK, I didn't know any family at all in my acquaintance and in the workplace where the parents didn't both work full time. These were all people in professional occupations, having their children in the 90s.

One thing was different - childcare was cheaper.

I'm not buying the correlation between two parents working and less healthy meals.

What a surprise.

14 years of underfunded public services under the Tories.

Andrew Lansley's sledgehammer blow to the NHS in 2012.

Cowardly governments unprepared to tackle the food industry despite overwhelming evidence they are pretty much poisoning us.

Increasing inequality meaning the poor get poorer, the rich get richer.

This is the result.