Where are the lads going wrong???
Gender and health are two things that are inextricably linked, and probably always will be, due to masculine behaviours directly affecting their health throughout their lives. There are numerous reasons why we need to focus particularly on men’s health, and also suggestions to improve the situation, a lot of which we will touch on briefly here for you!
The first and most obvious one is that women live 4.7 years longer than their male counterparts in our country, which just doesn’t seem very fair, does it? I’d be pretty annoyed if I had 5 years less life to live because I was born a boy. In countries such as Latvia and Lithuania, there is up to 10 years in the difference between life expectancy in men and women. So why is there such a huge gap??
- “Men across Europe are dying far too soon and suffering unnecessarily poor health simply because they take too many risks with their health, delay going to the doctor when they have a problem, and are offered health services that don’t meet their needs” [Ian Banks, EMHF, 2000].
In simple terms, many things just kill men sooner than they do women: injuries, cardiovascular disease, accidents, cancers, liver disease, etc. (a lot of these factors men lead by a considerable margin). Since 1990, the prevalence of obesity among men in Ireland has increased from 7.8% to 25.8% and latest statistics show that only 30% of men in Ireland are of ‘normal’ weight. Of particular concern, suicide is rampant in young men in Ireland – men suffer from loneliness a lot more, as they typically choose to internalize their feelings, or are told to ‘man up’ if they’re seen expressing emotion. This would seem to hint towards the necessity for gender-specific approaches to address both the physical and mental health needs of men in Ireland.
- “On the island (of Ireland), excess mortality amongst males represents a fundamental inequality in health” [p11, The Institute of Public Health in Ireland, 2001].
I mean, who’s to say that men always have to do the ‘dangerous’ jobs and the physical jobs? Why is it just the guys that seem to play violent sports? (NFL anyone?) ‘Risk-taking behaviour’ is also far more prevalent in men, which includes any and all extreme sports. Putting on suncream is all too often a practise that doesn’t apply to males, stemming from a desire to seem masculine – “The application of lotions to the body is a feminine pastime; masculine men don’t ‘pamper’ or ‘fuss’ over their bodies.”
There are really so many silly factors such as this – that are entirely unavoidable – that are killing half of the population somewhat prematurely. So what can we do to change the negative stigma that surrounds this whole topic of men’s health??
- Try and get men to open up about their feelings and what goes on in their heads more often – even if they’re uncomfortable with it.
- Doing physical activities are far more likely to elicit some form of chat from them.
- Counsellors can be valuable assets.
- Taking a more positive approach to men and their health in general .
References:
- Courtenay, W. H. (2000). Constructions of masculinity and their influence on men’s well-being: a theory of gender and health. Social Science & Medicine, 50(10), 1385–1401.
Men's health and inequalities 