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

[BePunnyLilacCrow]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20q07w3gl9o

I just read an article about healthy life expectancy in the UK, and I find it quite sad that we are basically at the bottom of the list among the world’s richest countries. Even the US is better than the UK on average??

Life expectancy in the UK is:

Men: ~79-80 years
Women: ~83-84 years

BUT

Men spend about 19–20 years in poorer health
Women spend about 22–23 years in poorer health

I know that the UK has relatively good overall life expectancy, but that mainly means we are keeping people alive for longer. Unfortunately, those extra years are often not spent in good health. These facts are not true for wealthier parts of the UK, but even the more affluent areas still tend to have lower healthy life expectancy than many average European countries. I am curious what
people think about the contributing factors? I think:

• Weaker family/social connections (I seriously think this is a big one)
• Obviously diet + high consumption of UPFs
• Low every day
activity (again, loneliness contributes to this esp. for the elderly)

There are many reasons, but in my opinion these contribute a lot. Especially weak social life I see in the UK compared to most countries I’ve lived/been to. For example something as simple as cooking together with people, or for family gatherings etc can have a huge impact on how people eat, because you are encouraged more to home cook food in that way, rather than just get a greasy takeaway or eat out, or just get a rubbish supermarket ready meals most people have etc.

This post is not about judging anyone’s lifestyle choices. But I think we should all be concerned about this because there is no point in living longer if it’s spent in illness. And I’m saying this as someone under 30.

What do you think? How can we improve these measures and live a better life in the UK?

The deaths of young workers seem to be related to drugs and iteration bodily harm that could lead to death and women in poorer areas are most effected. Parts of the North East, North West and Scotland.

Young women's mental health is in decline to the detriment of all society

I’m struggling to align your strength offering with the report, which didn’t put it as number one.

unhealthy homes can of course be detrimental to your health. Awaabs death is a tragedy of our times -and a national embarrassment, frankly, but not a great example of an impact on healthy living age at population level

No, I possibly shouldn't have said number one but, to be fair, you said you couldn't see it at all!

Awaab and Ella are representative of population level housing and environment linked deaths.

Poor housing isn't just about obvious poor health. There are factors such as overcrowding and poor mental health and stress.

Well yes I couldn’t see it because it wasn’t cited as important and I was looking for the number one cause of poor health 😂 kind of goes hand in hand.

its a factor but i think the reality is there are so many influencing and compounding factors. The report suggesting self reporting from people with Disabilities and the heath benefits of work are interesting

rural south. Off the top of my head, several pubs that do live music and quiz nights, two community movie theatres, 2 mens sheds, multiple craft groups, two or three walking groups,maybe more, U3A, several volunteer gardening groups, several choirs, multiple boot sales and tabletop sales, a library that does various activities for various ages plus runs a community fridge. All of that stuff is cheap or free. If you can pay (and council evening classes did cost money) various craft and art tutoring groups, meeple cafe, Council leisure centre. Local wildlife walks and activities. All this is what I'd call local local, if you drive 30 mins or so, there is more. oh and a couple of WI's

This is just the stuff that I know exists. I haven't ever actually hunted for stuff to do as I am not a social animal

Ah OK. I had presumed you weren't in the UK.

well there you go......

Anyone who wants to invoke culture or "attitudes" will need to explain why things have gotten worse in the UK in the last 10 years whilst getting better almost everywhere else. And why these "bad attitudes" always seem to manifest in very different countries like Portugal and the US that just happen have high levels of inequality. Whereas the good attitudes are all concentrated in equally diverse, but much more equal, countries like Finland and Japan.

Obviously personal behaviours mediate health outcomes, but the temptation towards "bad" behaviours (e.g. overeating and being sedentary) is a human universal - we evolved to store calories. So invoking greed and laziness does zero work in explaining the differences between countries or over time - these must be caused by structural and environmental factors, and indeed there is loads of evidence to that effect.

Ultimately, the purpose of these types of analyses is to inform government policy. Reducing inequality, investing in preventative healthcare, providing access to green spaces and improving housing law - these are all evidence-based possible government policies. Telling people to take more personal responsibility is not an effective government policy. It's just a pointless bit of moral posturing.

Sorry but that’s utterly ridiculous. GDP is meaningless without taking population size into account

This is true in my experience, I am a despised boomer (late but still a wrong 'un!😂) and my "silent generation" mum worked full time as did all my friend's mums. We all went back to work after having our babies, I have never known any SAHMs. I've never had the money to have a car so always walked a lot or used public transport which still involves walking as none of it is door to door, always cooked from scratch (why do we say that, what is scratch?), smoked spasmodically from 15 -16 but packed it in due to recurrent throat infections plus never taking to it, lucky me. What has hit me in my later years is just a level of tiredness that I cannot shake off or power through.

I imagine that it also has something to do with benefits. The number of people with anxiety, depression, adhd etc is spiralling because people get paid to have these disorders. If mental illness is included in the ‘poor health’ figures then that would explain a lot.

I’m 30 and both my mum and both grandmothers were SAHMs. We were working class too.

Try having chronic health issues and having rely on the nhs.
That's why my health has deteriorated and will continue to do so.
I can't afford private health care/operations.
I've no doubt my lifespan will be curtailed due to poor/non existent care.

im sure that does brilliantly to help mental health and socialising. Once upon a time we could sit in a class with a variety of different people, learn something new but also perhaps make a new friend or at least head to the pub at the end of term. Now people sit alone in their room and talk to an AI bot. Wonderful 🙄

I think the thread was about people trying to look at reasons behind a nationwide statistic, rather than individual MNers who may not even be personally affected by the issues they are considering.

Interesting map. Particularly how Portugal is showing as I can remember reading something a few years back on how health trends were changing there with youngsters eating a lot more fast food. When holidaying near Porto we observed a lot of very overweight children.

According to Worldostats that looks at WHO and national health data the U.S. obesity rate is significantly higher at 42 %, UK is 28.7% Ireland is also higher than the UK at 30.8% Greece, Czech Republic, Hungry, Poland, Croatia, Australia all higher obesity rates.

Yes, Asako Yuzuki's Butter has become a new favourite book of mine,,and it does satirise the pressure on Japanese women (but not men as much ) to stay thin well. I did however wonder if it went too far the other way and overlooked the point of health, though, without spoilers, I thought by the end of the novel the author seemed to suggest a healthier middle way.

I'm surprised. The stats I've seen (that may be out of date now) showed only Malta as having worse obesity/overweight than the UK.

Thats never been the case.

Within the EU+UK I mean. Obviously not beating US and Mexico etc.

From Wikipedia
"With 26% - meaning one out of four adults - being obese, Malta is far ahead on the obesity scale, comparable to other EU countries.[3]"

Unfortunately, the footnote only goes to the Eurostat website and not to the exact figures, but this shows there was a time when Malta was top of the bill.

And here the BBC reporting on the UK having the highest obesity rate in western Europe, but I can't see a date for the article.
Why are Brits the fattest in Western Europe? - BBC Food

Greece has always been the most obese country in Europe.

i think people think obese is some enormous spilling out over the mobility scooter getting craned out of their house scenario. Obese is a calculation and it’s very common
particularly later in life to tip into it.

think about the Italian nona, stout after a life of pasta- likely obese. The stout Greek retired fisherman- likely obese.

at 70, my dad is obese. Works full time in a physical job and cycles 30 miles a day to work.

sorry eta- Malta may well be ahead of Greece obesity rates (I’m not sure, it’s such a small place) but that just reiterates the Mediterranean / southern Europe obesity also experienced by Greece Italy and Spain

Also the cries of the uk must be the most obese county ever just screams of self hating self obsessed Brits. Why would they be the most obese country?!? We don’t lead in anything, even obesity 😂