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Three boroughs in London set to be the most unhealthy
Amy Iggulden, Health Correspondent4 Jan 2008
Three London boroughs will soon become the unhealthiest places to live in Britain.
A new league table shows that the residents of Tower Hamlets, Southwark and Hackney are getting unhealthier by the year.
They scored highest in key danger areas including smoking, obesity and poor diet.
Lambeth and Islington were also rated among the bottom 10 "danger boroughs" of the future.
But at the same time other parts of the capital will climb to the top of the well-being league.
Richmond, Twickenham, Redbridge and Kingston are expected to be among the top 10 healthiest places to live.
Currently the worst places in the country for poor health are the old industrial towns of the North-East.
Today's study by healthcare researchers TNS and CACI shows parts of London will overtake them in a few decades.
The findings come as a government report reveals that 70,000 a year are dying because of poor diet.
The report says at least 42,200 people a year could be saved if they hit the five-a-day target for fruit and vegetables, while another 20,200 could be saved by cutting salt consumption from nine grams to six.
GP Ian Campbell said: "This is not a problem caused by lack of education - on the whole people know what they are supposed to do, but they just don't want to do it."
TNS calculated its figures by examining the number of "high risk" people in each borough.
In some places the entire population fell into this group, yet the figures showed the NHS is not targeting money in the right places. Camden is 11th in the unhealthy league, but it is not among the areas receiving the most money.
It is missing out because it has a high number of affluent people as well as those at the poor and unhealthy end of the scale, according to Ian Thurman of CACI. The findings follow pledges by London health bosses to cut the health gap between rich and poor by reforming the NHS.
Reader views (9)
Fact: cities have always had poor, lower-class populations. These people, logically, will have had less healthy mothers with a worse diet while pregnant, and will have had a worse upbringing in terms of diet and parenting -also a lower IQ like their parents. Moreover, Black and Asian people are prone to heart disease and diabetes, and the people's republic of Hackney and the others have huge ethnic populations. How to solve the problem? I agree with Austen: Move! If you can't move, do your duty as a mother and be there for your kids and feed them properly (and parents are to blame here, as they usually are - not the Government, media, schools etc).
- Edwin Webb, Greenwich, London, 08/01/2008 11:05
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Absolutely correct Mike, I had the misfortune to live in Upton Park for a year and it was like a third world country. Filth everywhere, people using streets and front gardens as rubbish dumps and regularly coughing up the contents of their throats and noses onto the pavement.
No wonder the real Eastenders have moved out!
- Kyle, London, 08/01/2008 10:45
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People don't eat the little bit of salad that garnishes the plate because all too often the salad is badly washed, the tomatoes are cheap, tasteless and with a cardboard-like texture, the cucumber looks all dried up and hard, and the shredded carrot is so dry that it stays stuck in our throat. If good quality vegetables were readily available in this country, at an affordable price, I am sure people would eat more of them. Instead, we are treated to a mess of watery, out of season, and over-packaged vegetables that cost a fortune in the supermarket. Yes, I shop at farmers' markets in my Hunter wellies and large-ish disposable income: no family to feed, lots of time at the weekend to do these lovely things. But, ho hum, small wonder people with lesser incomes can't be bothered to eat properly.
- Branners, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 08/01/2008 10:13
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No Julianne, they're full of asylum seekers who have no desire to care for the area they live in.
- Mike, London, 07/01/2008 13:34
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Problem - "Three London boroughs will soon become the unhealthiest places to live in Britain."
Solution - move.
- Austen, London, 05/01/2008 21:02
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Just this lunchtime I dropped in at a cafe recently taken over by a friend of mine and she was commenting on how very few people bother to eat the little bit of salad she garnishes dishes with. I noticed the same with the cafe/bar down the road. Heaps of salad left on the plates. People have the money to eat out on a Saturday lunchtime and know what they should eat but just don't! Classic case of taking a horse to water but being unable to make it drink.
- C Davies, Mid Sussex UK, 05/01/2008 20:26
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I live in Southwark and find this entirely believable. We're surrounded by fast food shops and the types of supermarket that pride themselves in offering cheap, nasty, fat laden ready meals. Factor in the cheap booze outlets and the fact that a large proportion of people living here are fat, lazy and unintelligent and it's no surprise that Southwark is on the list.
- Paul, London, 05/01/2008 12:32
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You know what - don't think has anything to do with New Labour (which surely must be pretty old by now)- but surely these areas have high levels of poverty - so if the only food you can afford to buy is that which is sugar/fat high but cheap.
And on the flip side - people taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions - seems to be a dying art. Eat too much,not enough exercise = fat.
- Julianne, London, 04/01/2008 18:09
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These are the ones under Nu Labor rule by the way...
- Leo, London, NW1, 04/01/2008 16:23
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