Which one is me?

[Mick F]

Define "healthy".

From what I see when out and about, people are generally overweight, they over-eat and they don't eat healthily either.

My maternal grandfather ......... I've told this story before ........... was coal-miner, pick axe etc probably 12hr shifts down the pit. In 1930something, he won a great deal of money on the horses. Aged in his early 40s.

Packed up with the coal-mining malarky and took up market gardening.
He died in his late 90s ................ I doubt he'd have seen his late 50s had be been still down the pit.

[Jdsk]

> Life expectancy - not the same as 'healthier' of course - modern medicine keeps the frail living longer and I'm an example of that (well, not frail, in fact pretty damned ok but only by virtue of a pill or two).

It's pretty hard to find a good definition of health. But the data on total and healthy years are in the linked article.

Modern medicine also includes vast amounts of prevention of disease.

I worry about statements such as "We were healthier in those days". It's so easy to fall into Golden Agery.

Jonathan

PS: Of course we could look at why life expectancy in the UK has got worse or stopped improving in the last 10y, the massive systematic differences within the UK, and why it's higher in some other countries. Preferably based on the actual figures.

[Jdsk]

Define "healthy".

It's pretty hard to find a good definition of health.

But you wrote: "We were healthier in those days"... what did you have in mind?

Thanks

Jonathan

[axel_knutt]

Braintree County High School.
It must have been spring 1971.

[axel_knutt]

/contd.

[Mick F]

Look at all that hair!

But you wrote: "We were healthier in those days"... what did you have in mind?

Not lethargic and overweight, not sitting down and staring at screens, being active and walking to school, not driven.
The list is endless.

[Jdsk]

But you wrote: "We were healthier in those days"... what did you have in mind?

Not lethargic and overweight, not sitting down and staring at screens, being active and walking to school, not driven.
The list is endless.

Thanks.

Totally agree about obesity. Do children take less exercise than they did then? Using local media can benefit children's emotional health, apart from the educational opportunities that computers bring.

No mention of avoidance of disease?

Jonathan

[Oldjohnw]

I understand that whilst lifespan has steadily increased, which I guess means people are healthier - in my parents’ time people were old at 60: we expect to do European cycle tours - when you get into your eighties the old problems of creaking joints, failing hearts and losing one’s marbles are there as much as ever.

I have read in recent times that there is a danger that there is a generation who will for he first time have a shorter lifespan than their parents: obesity, diabetes and a whole variety of things which are a consequent of an affluent but sedentary life. Plus drugs.

[Jdsk]

I understand that whilst lifespan has steadily increased, which I guess means people are healthier - in my parents’ time people were old at 60: we expect to do European cycle tours - when you get into your eighties the old problems of creaking joints, failing hearts and losing one’s marbles are there as much as ever.

Yes to the first bit, there are many more active people over any such age cut-off than previously. That sounds like "healthier' to me.

The figures for healthy years as well as total years are linked above.

But as well as the improvements I'd want to discuss the enormous inequalities, and what drives them.

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

I have read in recent times that there is a danger that there is a generation who will for he first time have a shorter lifespan than their parents: obesity, diabetes and a whole variety of things which are a consequent of an affluent but sedentary life. Plus drugs.

That is often mentioned.

And what's happened in the last 10y in the UK doesn't look good.

But "drugs" has a lot of meanings...

Jonathan

[Oldjohnw]

I have read in recent times that there is a danger that there is a generation who will for he first time have a shorter lifespan than their parents: obesity, diabetes and a whole variety of things which are a consequent of an affluent but sedentary life. Plus drugs.

That is often mentioned.

And what's happened in the last 10y in the UK doesn't look good.

But "drugs" has a lot of meanings...

Jonathan

I agree. In parts of Glasgow, for example, life expectancy is considerably less than in adjacent boroughs.

When I say drugs i mean the use of what we call ‘recreational drugs’ which are, it happens, illegal. We don’t yet know, as far as I know, quite how this unfolds over the lifetime of the individuals as they are not yet old.

[Jdsk]

When I say drugs i mean the use of what we call ‘recreational drugs’ which are, it happens, illegal. We don’t yet know, as far as I know, quite how this unfolds over the lifetime of the individuals as they are not yet old.

Thanks.

Illegality gets in the way of health here, both in the real world and in discussion.

The two big ones for the purpose of this thread are of cause both legal... tobacco and alcohol. And we've seen massive improvements in health from what's happened to one of those in the relevant timescale in the UK.

Jonathan

[Mike Sales]

But "drugs" has a lot of meanings...

Jonathan

When I say drugs i mean the use of what we call ‘recreational drugs’ which are, it happens, illegal.

In common usage "drugs" plural means an illegal, or recreational, drug, and not necessarily more than one.
A drug, singular, may well mean a prescribed drug.

[Oldjohnw]

I would have thought that when I talk about drugs having a negative affect on life expectancy I mean the huge range of illegal drugs.

When I said "what we call illegal" I was acknowledging the reality of the significant case that many of these should be legal. I largely subscribe to that view.

Prescription drugs, when not abused, surely extend life or quality of life.

[Jdsk]

But "drugs" has a lot of meanings...

When I say drugs i mean the use of what we call ‘recreational drugs’ which are, it happens, illegal.

In common usage "drugs" plural means an illegal, or recreational, drug, and not necessarily more than one.
A drug, singular, may well mean a prescribed drug.

I disagree. "I'm on these drugs... " and similar would be common parlance in discussing prescribed or over the counter medications.

For example:
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=146695&p=1626120&h ... s#p1626120
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=147058&p=1626023&h ... s#p1626023

Jonathan

PS: As patients might have noticed in consultations it isn't easy for doctors to find out what you are taking, and often have to ask the question in several different ways... medicines, tablets, pills...