HOW IS YOUR health? What illnesses, if any, worry you? Have your eating habits changed for the better? Do you sleep well? Are you anxious? We asked these and many more questions to our thousands of newsletter subscribers for one purpose: to compare the results to a health questionnaire carried out in 1992/3 that featured in the first issue of Top Santé. In many areas, we’re not much different, but in some, people’s attitudes and habits have changed – and not always all for the better.
It’s no wonder many of us are stressed and anxious. The impact of Covid and worldwide lockdowns has, in some cases, done irreparable damage, not only to healthcare systems but individual psyches, too. Families are still disrupted, livelihoods lost. Mental health plummeted. Healthcare organisations are still coping with the aftermath. It was only to be expected that a fairly recent global pandemic would impact the responses of those who completed our survey. And yet, in many ways, we ought to be healthier as a nation; 30 years on.
FEELING OPTIMISTIC
The 1993 Top Santé national poll showed close to two thirds of people said their heath was “good”, and at least nine-out-of-10 people said their health was either “good” or “fair”. A tiny number – one per cent – described their health as “very bad”; even among the over-65s, this judgement was made by only one-in-every-25 people.
