HEALTH + WELLNESS
MEN’ S HEALTH MATTERS
BY POLLY HUMPHRIS
F or decades, mention of‘ healthcare issues’ as a sweeping term( that, ironically, in the context of women has itself been known to be swept under the budgeting carpet) has been used to reference women’ s health as an overarching topic. While women’ s health absolutely deserves focus, as a result men’ s health has been pushed further down the agenda. The glaring issue here? Stigma. For generations, outdated patriarchal pressure has taught boys to‘ man up’, with crying, expressing pain( both mentally and physically) or asking for help seen as weakness. This mindset doesn’ t just damage mental health, piling on top of the existing pressure to suffer in silence, it can be deadly, with many men ignoring obvious symptoms until it’ s too late.
Looking at statistics, the numbers don’ t lie. On average, men die about five years earlier than women. They’ re more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, suicide and accidents. In fact, men account for about 80 % of all suicides worldwide. Not to mention, men are less likely to go to the doctor- even when they know something’ s wrong. That’ s not bravery; that’ s a public health crisis.
So, why has men’ s health taken a backseat historically? First, women’ s health needed( and still needs) major advocacy. For a long time, medical research essentially centred around men, yet paradoxically, when it came to specific public health efforts, the spotlight shifted to women. Breast cancer awareness, for example, has rightly been a massive movement, but prostate cancer kills nearly as many men as breast cancer kills women and the awareness around it isn’ t even close.
A lot of public health campaigns have been designed with women in mind, especially around illness prevention and lifestyle choices, perhaps because we’ re the ones that bear children. While this isn’ t necessarily a bad thing, it does mean men have often been left out of the conversation. Combine that with fewer regular check-ups and more high-risk behaviours like smoking( the UK has around 3.6 million male smokers and 2.8 million female smokers), heavy drinking( UK men drink on average 14.7 units of alcohol a week compared to the 8.5 units drunk by women), and risky jobs( in 2024, 95 % of all work-related fatalities involved male workers), and you’ ve got a recipe for trouble.
Another important factor is research funding, which has always been a contentious topic. Shockingly, until the 1990s, medical studies often didn’ t even include women, a fact that when discovered led to a surge in female-focused research to correct the imbalance. Naturally, this was necessary, but now that same energy needs to be applied to men’ s healthcare issues, particularly with regard to conditions like testicular cancer, erectile dysfunction and low testosterone, which still carry weird shame and aren’ t discussed nearly enough.
The upside? Things are slowly changing. More guys are talking about mental health and more awareness campaigns are popping up( shoutout to Movember, which raises awareness about prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men’ s mental health throughout November every year), but there’ s still a long way to go. Effectively and undeniably, men’ s health matters- not just for men, but for everyone around them. When men take care of themselves, just as we all should, families are stronger, workplaces are healthier and communities thrive. So, let’ s stop telling men to tough it out and start telling them it’ s OK to check in, speak up and get help. In the meantime, here are some top food and nutrition tips for men who are looking to achieve a healthier lifestyle, which might make all of us think twice about what’ s on our plates.
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