Yet again, we in Scotland have the lowest life expectancy in western Europe. Here’s how to improve it | Devi Sridhar

by brigadoom

13 comments

  1. Fairly neutral article from the graun.

    TL;DR – Scottish Govt has made a few positive steps, but the real problem is deprivation. And covid has made it worse.

    > The lead author of the study, Austin Schumacher, said that: “For adults worldwide, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a more profound impact than any event seen in half a century, including conflicts and natural disasters.”

    Austin Schumacher – not to be confused with Morris Verstappen

  2. Another quote:
    > Recent analysis suggests that austerity policies at UK level over more than a decade have had a negative effect. In short, reduced spending on social security and public services by the UK government has decreased the amount of funding allocated to Scotland to keep pace with health challenges.

  3. We glorify heavy drinking and eating shit. I’m going to get pelters for this but take the tartan army, all I see is a bunch of fat bastards getting paralytic abroad pissing in a fountain and we claim we are the best fans in the world because we don’t try stab anyone. Don’t say its to do with poverty plenty of other countries are poor and have shit weather. I’m not a massive SNP fan but at least they have attempted stuff with smocking bans and minimum alcohol pricing but we really need a cultural shift.

  4. This has a lot to do with bad lifestyle choices. People seem to think they can eat takeaways do very little exercise take drugs and drink like someone in their 20s while being 40+.

  5. Still a higher life expectancy than the greatest country in the galaxy.

  6. There are factors that are clearly Scottish specific like the ridiculous amount of drug deaths and areas where the west bank has a higher life expectancy and I would personally appreciate a more thorough explanation and analysis (from anyone here) rather than the simplistic answers given in the article like blaming austerity (that fucks over all poor people in the British isles equally) and covid which fucked over every country worldwide but yet Scotland comes out the worst.

    I didn’t really get the “here’s how we improve it” part apart from a bunch of snp press releases and I felt the author struggled to hide her bias in the article which meant it lost a lot of it’s power. (ie the quick quip about drug deaths decreasing which is a pathetically low bar to celebrate given the total numbers and boasting that Scotland had the lowest child poverty in the British isles which seems counter to her depravation argument).

    Think I’ve been clickbaited by an author who is preparing for a run at Westminster or Holyrood under the guise of a neutral public health article tbh.

  7. You’re not in western Europe, you’re more like Portugal, but without the sun.

  8. There is a lot of combining factors here that people are missing.

    Yes we have horrible food and lifestyle problems but the question should be, how do we deal with those. Not just “lol just stop ordering mcdonalds on the way home ya fat lazy bastards”.

    Its all well in good that some people have the time energy and money to make good healthy food every night, but the ultimate crux is that people dont have anywhere near the time and money to do so If you want to have your meal before 8pm while working till 5pm and still, well good fucking luck. If you want to not spend £30 (per person) a week to have a nice variety of healthy food options from your local shops well good fucking luck.

    Then we get to the fact that many people just dont know and have never known how to cook. In my highschool our “home ecc” totalled about 5 meals over the 3 years I had the class. Everything else was just random cook in 30min tops sugary shit and then I never had to take it again. Now multiply that out to country wide.

    And thats before we even think about getting people to go out and exercise. The way the country makes people “work to live to live to work” fundamentally doesnt allow people to make good long term decisions about themselves.

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