Wednesday 29 August 2012

How come we're living longer?

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Poor old nannying fussbuckets. After an unremitting torrent of statistical garbage about booze, fags and burgers and how they're killing us. Despite dire warnings of the "obesity crisis" and "alcohol pandemic". And following endless uncritical coverage from the BBC and national press...

...it seems us English are living longer, healthier lives!

Healthy life expectancy (HLE) increased by more than two years in the period 2008-10 compared with 2005-07.

The proportion of life spent in good health has increased in England and Wales, but fallen in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The ONS figures also show that more than four-fifths of a lifetime in the UK is spent in good health from birth.

Bit of a pity for the fussbuckets, eh? However, I'm sure they'll be back tomorrow with their calls for bans on this and new controls on that - all to to tune of "it's for the children."

A pox on them!

,,,,

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look at the years cited. They will say it is because of the smoking ban.

Anonymous said...

I have always thought that apart from the sewer system , the greatest contribution to the health of the nation were the long forgotten Clean Air Acts.

I will never forget those industrial smogs or the blackened walls covered in soot.
Hearing the people coming home from work in the city, wheezing as they walked up the hill.


Rose

Anonymous said...

Maybe we aren't and its just made up figures to extend working life, reduce pensions.

Gav

Mr A said...

I'm sure they would credit the smoking ban.... if it weren't for the unfortunate fact that Scotland has had a ban a year longer than us and the proportion of life spent in good health there went down.

Whoops.

Then again, they'll probably just gloss over that. It's not as if we actually expect them to use figures honestly or tell the whole truth, is it?