Choosing Health

The government have promoted healthy eating over the last couple of years. Tackling obesity is difficult so the government are trying to help make that process easier. The government’s White Paper Choosing Health: Making Healthier Choices Easier was published in November 2004. It set out how the government will make it easier for people to make the right choice by going healthy to be able to adopt healthier lifestyles.

There are 6 main priorities highlighted in Choosing Health:

  1. Tackling health inequalities
  1. Reducing the numbers of people who smoke
  1. Tackling obesity
  1. Improving sexual health
  1. Improving mental health and well-being
  1. Reducing harm and encouraging sensible drinking

Also the government wants to take action on:

  1. Helping children and young people to lead healthy live
  1. Promoting healthy and active life amongst older people

The government hope that these improvements to the nations’ health are improved by 2010 and increase life expectancy at birth in England to 78.6 years for men and to 82.5 years for women.

Smoking is the single greatest cause of illness and premature death in England today. Every year it kills an estimated 86,500 people in England (one fifth of all death).

Reducing the numbers of people who smoke as this leads to heart disease, strokes, cancer etc because the majority of people felt this was an aspect of their life which they needed more support in addressing the issue; because many people were concerned about the affects of second hand smoke; and because many parents were concerned about their children taking up smoking.

It is vital that we should be improving diets and nutrition of the nation due to a rapid increase in child and adult obesity over the past decade and the future holds very serious health problems if not addressed immediately. Effective action on diet and exercise now will help to tackle heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol etc.

By increasing exercise you can reduce the risk of major chronic diseases and premature death.  Over 1/3 of people are not active enough to benefit their health and rates of sports like walking and cycling have decreased over the last 25 years.

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The government are encouraging and supporting sensible drinking, a misuse of alcohol is associated with deaths from liver disease, stokes, cancer, suicide etc because it places a burden on the NHS.

Improving sexual health is key as the risk of sexual behaviour is increasing the risk of STI's like HIV, Chlamydia, genital warts etc.  Sexual transmitted diseases can lead to cancer, infertility and death.

Mental health issues are being improved because mental wellbeing is crucial to good physical health and making healthy choices.  Stress is the most common cause of all health sickness, also leading to suicide.

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