03/05/2026
Sometimes research comes out with results which are really, really important, but about which the person-in-the-street could say “Well, duh! I could have told you that!” A new study from The Health Foundation shows that our years of healthy life have declined, on average, by two years over the past decade. We’re still living as long, but two more years of each life are plagued by ill-health: we’re living sicker.
Furthermore, poverty is the main determinant of ill-health. Exactly as Prof Michael Marmot showed back in 2010, the rich live longer and healthier lives than the poor. The difference has become even more stark, though; the wealthiest people have, on average, 20 more years of healthy life than the poorest. It’s shocking, but it’s not new; ‘twas ever thus.
So, what needs to be done about it? What we don’t need is yet more research, more studies telling us what we already know about how bad things are. “Further research” can be a way for governments to avoid taking action, kicking the can down the road. What we need is nothing less than the elimination of poverty, of deprivation, of the misery that comes with poor housing and crap food. It’s not about “How to make poor people healthier”, it’s about how to make sure that nobody is poor.
As the inequalities of our society, due to the untrammelled greed of a few, increase year on year, so will illness. But it would be perfectly possible, if the Government chose to do it, to make fresh organic produce cheap and easily available to all, and to tax the highly profitable junk food industry out of existence. To incentivise farmers to grow real, organic food, not the monocrop wheat and oilseed r**e which feed that industry, as well as devastating the countryside. To have a vegetable garden in every primary school, and a local farmers’ market in every area. To teach schoolkids to cook.
Organic rocket, not rocket science! 🥬
