Food & Health Alliance

It covers: age, asylum seekers and refugees, carers, disability, ethnicity, language, literacy, migrants, poverty, prisoners, religion and belief, sex and gender, and sexual orientation. There are some data for all population groups, but while much information is robust, much is unsatisfactory, being based on broad estimates, out of date or requiring generalisation to Scotland from the rest of the UK or beyond. The most important, recurring, theme for health improvement is the damage done to mental health and wellbeing by the pervasive and insidious effects of personal prejudice, collective discrimination and structural exclusion.

Physical Activity:

In terms of physical activity the report found that:

• Substantial numbers of young people have mental health problems, consume a poor diet and undertake insufficient physical activity.
• By age 45–64 the effects of accumulated harms to the body and mind from environment and behaviour – as well as biological inheritance and chance – are becoming evident. The effects of tobacco smoking on premature mortality, for example, are as large as those of class and gender. Deaths directly linked to particular behaviours (e.g. alcohol misuse) increase in this age group, but most mortality and morbidity is from heart and circulatory disease and cancers which are more diffusely linked to multiple behaviours, including diet, physical activity, smoking and drinking.
• Mental wellbeing tends to be better above retirement age, but around 1 in 25 of those aged 65+ are affected by depression at any point in time. Older people tend to have better health habits than younger adults – diets are less energy dense and fewer smoke or drink excessively – though physical activity levels are low.
• Those from all ethnic groups are less likely to engage in physical activity than the general population in both Scotland and England.
• Childhood poverty increases the risk of health problems both in infancy and in childhood, with continuing effects throughout life and into the next generation. Poverty is strongly associated with some health risk factors, such as smoking, diet and obesity in women. For others (such as physical activity and alcohol) the association is more complex. Poor people (especially young adults) have poorer mental health, worse self-rated health and higher levels of mortality.
• Women are more likely to be obese, though men are more likely to be overweight, and to have lower levels of physical activity.
• Physical activity rates were found to be low among young LGB people in Glasgow in 2002 compared with other young people.