Richer areas in the south have lower death rates from heart disease than poorer areas in the North.
An author of what the BBC calls "a landmark report" on health inequalities says
We know that many health conditions relate to social and economic status and these largely explain the variations in life expectancy and health status that we see across England between regions and within smaller areas.Heart Research UK's "lifestyle manager" says that
It is still the case in England, as in most other countries, that the richer you are the healthier you are likely to be and the longer you will live.
People living in deprived communities, in particular, are at greater risk of developing heart disease due to several risk factors such as poor diet, lack of exercise and access to health education and advice.Eh? This is no longer the nineteenth century. Anyone with access to a supermarket can eat reasonably healthily and cheaply. It's the same main supermarkets in every PCT area. If people choose to eat a poor diet, it's a choice they've made.
Lack of exercise? In a few council estates walking about may be dangerous, but even there people can still exercise in their front rooms.
And access to health education and advice? I haven't noticed any locally at all. Just the media. The same media which broadcast to the north west of England.
The nannies should just face it. Some people ignore information and make stupid choices. Not that the government doesn't keep trying. Pupils in one local school have just sat through their fourth viewing at the school of the television film Supersize Me.
Maybe more children from comprehensive schools would get to a good university if the schools educated their pupils rather than repeatedly force fed them the same health advice.
Imagine how fee paying parents would react if their children were treated that way. Deaths from stress in southern England might shoot up.
What happened to personal responsibility? If it's ignorance, it's wilful.
5 comments:
"Lack of exercise? In a few council estates walking about may be dangerous, but even there people can still exercise in their front rooms."
The NHS actualy spends more on heart disease treatment than it would cost to give every man woman and child a free gym pass.
The NHS budget is over £2000 per year per person, if you just gave that to people, they could afford a much better diet and gym membership.
Both things I've had to cut back on and cancel recently.
Of course they wouldn't spend it on that, and of course there would still be heart disease cases to be treated.
Nor do I see gym membership as relevant
How do the regional figures for all sorts of diseases correlate with the public sector share of the economy by region?
Popular health in Scotland, for example, is even worse than that in the North West of England.
Mrs Gruff and I spent several months from the last quarter of last year to the first quarter of this eating quite well, if a little monotonously, on £25.00 per week for food for two, or £12.50 per week per head, and neither of us lost weight. That changed only when I swallowed my pride and submitted a claim for JSA (which has allowed me to spend money on the garden). Could it be that there is a connection between a willingness to stand on one's own feet, without relying on the state, and what one chooses to eat? The entrepreneurial spirit in the UK is certainly more apparent in the South east than in any of the less healthy 'regions'.
LMFAO!
The purpose of this comment is merely to report that the verification word for this comment is 'ingsoc', I kid you not.
If only I could claim I'd written that verification code!
I hope Mr & Mrs Gruff have fallen on better times now.
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