Are We ‘All Talk-No Action’ When it Comes to Our Health?
47 percent of adults admit to talking more about getting healthy than doing it.
Despite almost half of adults (46 percent) believing they need to think more about leading a healthy lifestyle, the same amount (47 percent) admit to spending a lot more time talking about getting healthy than actually doing anything about it. And a third of adults (33 percent) say they wouldn’t even know where to start.
Women own up to being the worst offenders with one in two (48 percent) of 45-64-year-olds saying they are more inclined to give advice about being healthy than take it (31 percent for men of the same age).
The survey also revealed that although people around the 40 year old mark are much less knowledgeable about their own health and fitness than their parents – 69 per cent having no idea about their blood pressure, compared to 27 percent of people over 65 – they spend more time worrying about it. Top of the list of concerns for mid-lifers as they get older is keeping fit and active (81 percent), with staying slim at 73 percent and 70 percent worrying about their emotional wellbeing.
Other key highlights from mid-lifers surveyed include:
- Over two-thirds (68 percent) of women are often more concerned about their family’s wellbeing than their own as they get older, more so than men of the same age (52 percent).
- People of mid-life age were less worried about how much alcohol they drink, with nearly two thirds (61 percent) of 45-64 year olds not worried about it at all.
- A third (34 percent) only think about their health when they become ill or are feeling down.
- Over three in four women (76 percent) worry about their emotional wellbeing as they get older, more than men of the same age (63 percent).
(The mid-lifers target age range were those people aged 45-64 years of age.)
Joanne Webster, a professor of parasitic diseases at the RVC, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
