Life chances are linked to life choices

The diagram below is made up of a few facts on some key ‘variants’: obesity, poverty, diabetes, air pollution and underlying health conditions. These facts about our lives are ‘variants’ as they are largely avoidable in the first place and reversible at a later stage; they are not fixed over the course of history or spread of geography. As the recent report of the Food Foundation (June 2024) states regarding the deterioration in children’s health in England and the socio-economic forces shaping that, ‘What is so deeply troubling about the health problems highlighted in this report is that they are largely preventable’.  

These facts are inextricably linked to trends in morbidity and mortality statistics. Not only do they impair many people’s quality of life and life expectancy, but their increasing cost on our healthcare system is a burden borne by taxpayers, governments, the economy, welfare programmes and civil society as a whole. But there is a choice: we can decide to reduce, replicate or reinforce such facts OR create a rather different portfolio of facts to represent what it means to be human in today’s world!