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?

They dont really do cooking. I've had four kids go through and each of them have done about three meals. In their entire school lives. Unless i'm counting the times they got to make toast in reception.

I live in an area where a third of children are obese by the time they leave primary school. The majority of this is because of diet. I used to help out at the school and some of the pack lunches that were brought in were just junk food. Load to them with then spend three or four hours a night on screens, maybe maybe tokenly going to play football once or twice a week. The parents would them be surprised their kid was in aged 9 trousers by year one. Many of these parents Im good friends with anne have been on holiday with several groups of school friends over the years. And have seen what they feed the kids both at home and on holiday and it is mental. For example three ice creams a day "because we are on holiday" everyday of the holiday. They obviously adore and love their kids to bits but they don't feed them well or themselves.
They quite regularly talk about diets and eating well, but it tends to be that then they eat low, fat, high sugar food. Or UPFs that pretend to be healthy.

I am not sure it is a general UK thing, although I suspect some of the ill health is caused by poor diet or lack of interest/knowledge about healthy food combined with the non-stop eating that has become prevalent.

I don’t suggest there is a simple answer. And this is not an only UK problem. But my point is that we are “worse off” than most similar countries. And that we must surely be worse off for a reason/reasons.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/blogs/uk-sicker-man-europe

This article makes some good points

Healthy life expectancy by national area deprivation, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

It is more complicated that the bald figures in the Op. It is massively area dependant so people living in richer areas have substantially longer life expectancy in the first place, and a considerably greater proportion of this is in good health.

The more deprived areas are also more likely to have people suffering from "shit life syndrome" Left behind: can anyone save the towns the UK economy forgot?
where people who can leave do, and the people who move in are those who can't afford to be anywhere else.

Yes, it is about economic inequality.
I recall seeing a map, sorry don't have the link, of the 10 or 20 richest and poorest places / cities in Europe. London was one of the richest (obviously).
All except one or two of the poorest places were in the rest of the UK, mostly England.
That is to say, our country has most of the poorest places in Europe, and absolutely massive wealth inequality.
The stress of poverty causes poor health, including driving obesity as well as being a medical thing in and of itself.

I'm in my 60s and run a couple of times a week (10k not marathons) but I'm the oldest woman at my work and the most active. Most do no exercise at all.

Go on, blame parents and ignore the diabolical damage Gove's curriculum has done to the education system.

Talk about being part of the problem 🙄

The main factor is inequality. When you look at the countries that do well and poorly (e.g. Finland Vs the US) this is pretty obvious. And there's loads of research to back this up.

Everyone likes to think there's some "special sauce" that explains good health in certain places and countries - like doing yoga or drinking red wine or something - but most of these effects are driven by the bottom up. The UK has lots of people living in poverty now, especially children, and the quality of housing is terrible for many people which has direct effects on health. The NHS is underfunded and the poor cannot afford private healthcare. Many people are working two or three jobs which makes it really hard to find time or energy to see the doctor in a timely way. There has also been an increase in deaths of desperation I.e drug use and suicide.

Of course there are other factors too. The NHS is pretty shit at preventative medicine, for example. And I'm sure our weather doesn't help. But everything I've read suggests that inequality is the big factor.

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

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.

I think a big part of it is the jobs people do. My aunt is in her 80s and fit as a fiddle, but she worked in marketing.

Whereas DPs mum is in her 50s and has been doing night shifts in a factory for decades. She’s had endless surgeries and injuries. My other aunt buggered her back working in the NHS and walks with a stick.

Shift work and physical jobs wear out the body much quicker.

Plus don't forget that crappy food, made of carbs and fat, is cheaper. Protein and fresh veg is expensive to buy, and also more expensive to cook when you get it home, not to mention the time it takes.

Can you please describe the weak social life you have seen in the Uk compared to the other countries you have been to/lived in ?

There may be more to it than laziness, I think. Large numbers of people have what pretty much amounts to an addiction to screens nowadays - which reminds me that I need to close Mumsnet now and put down my phone!

I'm not surprised. Scotland has been bottom the European table for health outcomes for decades and I don't think England and Wales are far behind. As a nation we eat crap, we're overweight/obese, we drink too much, smoke/vape too much, don't take enough exercise, have high levels of health-related disability and huge health inequality (the poorest being the least healthy).

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lack of vitamin D?

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

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.

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.