According to the annual report by the Movember Foundation, men worldwide live shorter lives than women and suffer more from heart disease and cancer. Health risk factors are also more common among men, including smoking, alcohol abuse, obesity, suicide, and work and road accidents.
In spite of this, men access health services less frequently than women and when they do visit the doctor, they typically present late, thereby denying themselves the chance of early detection and effective treatment of common diseases.
In the Health Post survey, we asked some respondents for their opinion on why men seem to care less or talk less about their health than women. Here are some of the replies. (Some respondents wished to remain anonymous while others would give only their first name.)
- Men don't realise how important maintaining health is. Most consider fitness to be the same as health. In general, they don't consider the health of organs, blood, circulation and the mind to be part of fitness.
As they haven't been brought up to consider health in this way, they limit their talking to fitness issues: muscles, endurance, strength, etc. If they were brought up to speak about or consider the effect of food, stress, work, environment, they would speak about it as a matter of course.
Anonymous, 46, works in education
- In my opinion, I don't think it is that they don't care. It is more a poor level of understanding and awareness to health risks.
Malcolm Leigh, 37, sales
- It's embarrassing to discuss personal issues, especially when related to sexual matters.
Justin Choo, 34, veterinarian