Posted on 04/06/2025 1:51:17 AM PDT by RandFan
This month the government in England will launch a consultation for its men's health strategy. The move is long overdue, experts say, with men much more likely to die prematurely than women. But why are they in such poor health – and what can be done about it?
Andrew Harrison was running a men's health clinic from a youth centre in Bradford when he heard a knock. He turned to the door, but no-one was there. Then he heard his name being called. He looked around to see a young man at the window asking for condoms.
"I was on the first floor," he says, recounting the story from a few years ago. "The lad (guy) had shimmied up a drainpipe on the outside of the building because he didn't want to go through the reception and ask."
The anecdote, in many ways, encapsulates the challenges over men's health – a combination of risk-taking behaviour and a lack of confidence and skills to engage with health services.
Early deaths
In the UK men are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, use drugs and have high cholesterol and blood pressure.
These are major contributors to the fact men have a lower life expectancy than women - by four years - and are nearly 60% more likely to die prematurely before the age of 75, with heart disease, lung cancer, liver disease and in accidents.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Isn’t it biological, with men taking more risks and dying younger than women the world over?
Around the time I got pregnant with our second child, my husband started packing on the weight. He went from 200 lbs. at 5’11 to almost 280 lbs. We both had to lean over our bellies to kiss. A few years later, someone took a picture of us. I was back down to 122 lbs. That really bothered him.
I never pestered him about his weight. He had enough to worry about without me nagging him. When he would ask about it, I would kiss him, tell him he was still sexy, and as long as he was comfortable with his weight that was all that mattered.
His knees started to give him trouble and he was determined to lose the weight. Took about two years, but he is currently 215 and looks amazing. Yousa, smoking hot!
I think some men are unhealthy because the majority of young women nowadays are nasty, nagging, and useless. They are not loving, supportive, or taking care of business on the regular. Men thrive around loving, supportive wives who keep an eye on their man’s health, give him regular stress relief (lots of short and long-term health benefits for men who get lovin’ at least twice a week), and who cook balanced, healthy meals for them.
Instead, young guys are stuck behind computers or gaming systems, not getting regular affection, no exercise, rudderless. Those that go to the gym have to worry about hysterical tik-tockers lobbing bogus claims against them.
Not putting all the blame on women, but when millions gets poured into fighting breast cancer and a fraction goes to fighting prostate cancer, it just shouts that society doesn’t care about men’s health.
Breast cancer get the young, prostate the very old.
My wife, literally the girl-next-door, was petite, barely 5' and lost a battle to breast cancer at 28 many, many moons ago.
My girls were 4 and 1 at the time and I continue to monitor treatment regimens for them - not too much has changed over the decades.
Said like a supportive, caring wife. But it's wrong.
Men are responsible for their own health. Blaming women for poor diet, no exercise, and possible excessive drinking or drugs (as in the UK) just avoids the hard truth: these are personal choices. The solution starts when men decide to ditch their bad habits and build a better life—on their own terms.
Nice post. I would add that over the past few decades women’s health has been the rage and priority. As the feminization of society has overwhelmed, men have simultaneously been reduced in worth and priority. We are constantly bombarded with the never ending strong and independent woman message while men are the dopes and buffoons of little worth or value.
I’m a gym rat, but loving relationships, you know, love and don’t nag out of selfish motive.
You consider early 60s 'very old'? You must be very young.
:-)
Women have always lived longer than men, at all times in all societies. That’s basic biology, it’s even the reason why the birth ratio is lower for female than male babies (evolutionnary compensation for higher male mortality).
No amount of fake news from the BBC or post hoc justifications will change this reality.
Well said, Rooster.
Why do men die sooner?
Because they want to.
Dying prematurely means dying earlier than women ? Men are less likely to have healthy lifestyles than women, and are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs, have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Besides waiting longer to see a doctor (if at all).
Thx.:-)
Average age of detection is 67, but that means a much greater share of men in their 70s and 80s diagnosed.
If I lived in the UK I’d be dead by now... probably suicide!!
You can always transition since women live longer.
ROFL
An Al Bundy line, IIRC.
"Wives?"
In 2024, 47.1% of households were headed by married couples, the second lowest share since 2022’s all-time low of 46.8%. The percentage of households with a married couple peaked 75 years ago: in 1949, it was 78.8%. That percentage has been below 50.0% since 2010, when the rate was 49.7%. In other words, less than half of American households have included a married couple for over a decade. - https://usafacts.org/articles/state-relationships-marriages-and-living-alone-us/
- prb.org
Add to that:
U.S. adults appear to spend more time in sedentary behavior than previously thought, and the majority of this time is accumulated at work and in leisure time. Reducing sedentary screen time during leisure in favor of physically active could be an important intervention target in the effort to increase physical activity in U.S. adults. Copyright © 2021 by the American College of Sports Medicine.
The analyses indicate that population life expectancy in the USA would be 2.00 years higher if adults reduced their time spent sitting to <3 h/day and 1.38 years higher if they reduced television viewing to <2 h/day. - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3400064/
- https://thewholeu.uw.edu/2015/01/16/sittingdisease/
- http://rd411.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-toll-of-sitting-all-day.html
Which is related to overall nationally yielding to seductive feelings in a prosperous modern society (which is a test), vs. Divine Truth, beginning with conscience and extending to Scripture and the leading of the Spirit of Christ:
Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; (Romans 12:11)
Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: (Proverbs 1:24-25)...Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. (Proverbs 1:31-32)
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