Warning: Crisis in Health in Middle Age are taking its toll
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A man in his 40's doing his daily routine from waking up, morning coffee, office, lunch, going home, dinner and sleep, are enjoying his life with so much stress and pressures that makes him more prone to illnesses and diseases.
The Public Health England told BBC News that eight in every 10 people aged 40 to 60 in England are overweight, alcoholic and are getting too little exercise. These health issues prompted the government body to warn the public to the health risks involved.
Professor Muir Gray, campaign clinical adviser of PHE or Public Health England, said that the PHE's campaign is to make people have a different attitude to an "environmental problem".
PHE wants people to be fit and healthy in 2017 but "sandwich generation" of people caring for children and ageing parents, usually do not take time to look for themselves.
Moreover, according to Cliffsnotes, the most common health problems experienced during middle age are arthritis, asthma, bronchitis, coronary heart disease, diabetes, genitourinary disorders, hypertension, metal disorders and strokes. Along with these, AIDS has also become an increasingly frequent health problem during this age group.
Health problems experienced in middle aged adults are greatly related to stress. In this age group, people are constantly faced with many stressors like paying mortgages, challenges of raising a family, learning to use technology that is continually changing, layoffs in the office and dealing with chronic heart ailments. These stresses somehow affect the person to develop an illness within two years.
In a Radio 4's Today program, Professor Muir Gray said, "Modern life is dramatically different to even 30 years ago, drive to work and sit to work." Prof. Gray also explains that by taking action in mid-life, people can reduce the risk of many illnesses and diseases like Type2 Diabetes, dementia, disability and being a burden to the family.
As a response, the PHE website and app has a "quiz" that gives users a health score based on their lifestyles and habits by asking questions like "which snacks do you eat in a normal day?" and "How much exercise do you get every day?". By these simple questions, results are revealing.
Per Professor Kevin Fenton, director of Health and Wellbeing at PHE, said, "The How Are You Quiz will help anyone who wants to take stock and find out quickly where they can take a little action to make a big difference to their health."
Also, Dr. Ellie Cannon told BBC Breakfast that the "sandwich generation" was incredibly busy. However, she added, "This is all about making small changes that can have this really big improvement for long-term health... people want this, people want the help... it is not encouraging people to take on board anything expensive or anything complicated."
Fortunately, there are more than one million people have already taken the quiz so far and made the challenge to take the small change for a big difference in health for years to come.