Men tend to have a shorter lifespan than women, but what can they do about it?
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Being a man is like being born with a terminal disease that prematurely ends your life – so said a British professor of men’s health. Men, after all, live significantly shorter lives than women. But men needn’t accept a shorter lifespan than their sisters and wives. According to the European Commission’s recently released report The State of Men’s Health in Europe, more than half the premature deaths among men are avoidable. Poor lifestyle choices and other preventable risk factors are major contributors to premature deaths.
Two main causes of premature death among men are cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to the report. It says unhealthy diets and physical inactivity are the leading causes of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. And although men are typically more physically active than women, their diets are generally less healthy.
Since 1997, New Zealand men’s fruit consumption has risen substantially from just 34% of men eating the recommended two or more servings of fruit a day to 55% now. But this still falls short of the 66% of women who eat this much fruit, according to the 2008/09 New Zealand Adult Nutrition Survey. With vegetables, it’s a similar pattern: 60% of men eat three or more servings of vegetables a day; for women the figure is 72%. New Zealand women also eat a regular breakfast more often, choose higher-fibre breads, regularly or always remove excess fat from meat and skin from chicken, and report adding salt to food less often than men do.
For some time, there’s been a view that men are to blame for their poorer health, says Dr Felicity Goodyear-Smith, professor of general practice at the University of Auckland’s School of Population Health. But that view is changing, she says, as other contributing factors are identified. Men often don’t have a culture of preventative health, whereas women are used to attending doctors for cervical smears, mammograms, well-child checks and immunisations. “Men tend to present when there’s something gone wrong.”
Healthy eating is a preventative health measure. However, men’s nutritional knowledge tends to be more limited than women’s, and they’re less likely to read food labels – factors that can contribute to poorer dietary habits. Plus men often don’t have the same control over their diet as women do, because food purchasing and preparation have traditionally been performed by women.
Dietary habits are also influenced by our jobs. Longer hours, shift work and long commutes are associated with an increased reliance on convenience foods, snacking and eating out, according to the Adult Nutrition Survey. Also, men are more likely than women to have physically active jobs, and a green salad and apple aren’t going to meet the energy needs of a construction worker.
But what we eat during work hours makes a significant dietary contribution. The more fruit and vegetables we can include the better. Aim to take at least one piece of fruit to work each day for a snack, plus include either fruit or vegetables with your lunch. Add grated carrot, capsicum, sliced cucumber, tomato, spinach, avocado or beetroot to your wholegrain sandwich, or try vegetable sticks with hummus, fruit salad, coleslaw or a side salad with lunch. Adding a protein source, such as lean chicken, meat, tinned fish, egg or falafels, to your salad makes it more filling.
If you don’t have access to a lunchroom or desk at lunchtime, you’ll need more portable options. Rather than choosing a pie or sausage roll, try coleslaw and cold meat in a filled roll – you can buy bags of coleslaw at the supermarket – or try wraps stuffed with leftover salad and chicken from last night’s dinner. Pick fruits, such as bananas, that are portable and easily peeled.
The key is to find healthier solutions that suit your life. What’s more, health professionals must remember to consider and find solutions for the different aspects of men’s lifestyles and jobs that make healthy eating and living difficult for them.
Email: nutrition@listener.co.nz, or write to “Nutrition”, C/o Listener, PO Box 90783, Victoria St West, Auckland 1142.
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