How healthy is the UK? 32% of people still don’t value health as a priority

I did some research at the British Library the other day to find out how people’s attitudes are changing to health and wellbeing in the UK. Unfortunately it’s not an easy undertaking as you can well imagine. In fact after having only found arbitrary statistics from a plethora of different sources I realised I wasn’t going to be able to complete the research task I had set myself. Nevertheless, I found a great deal of information that I feel will interest you nonetheless.

As you can see from this pie chart, one third of us still don’t really value our health enough to warrant even small changes to our lifestyles that would be beneficial to our wellbeing.

This research was carried out by Mintel in its special report of January 2010: ‘Pie-chart to show attitudes to health in the UK’

Over the coming weeks I will release more information into the characteristics of each of these categories. It will be interesting to see which category you relate to most. I’ll also share with you the demographic profiles of each of these groups etc. You can find out about the first of the groups by clicking on this link: the ‘Health Freaks‘.

For the time being though I thought I’d add a few key points the research carried out by Mintel.

According to Mintel, the Internet is now the most widely-used source of information on all matters related to health and wellbeing. That is not to say it is the most trusted or reliable, simply that far more people search for information on health via the internet than via any other media conduit. Naturally people most often visit government health-related websites os websites such as NHS Choices, whose content they feel they can deem as scientific and impartial. Around three in ten respondents use each of these sources, compared to 13% who use sites run by health charities, and 12% who use internet forums and/or message boards. Women tend to favour government sites, whereas men tend to prefer to use a search engine. Three in ten find it useful to talk to friends and family about health matters and rather fewer than this value advice from their pharmacist. Nearly four in ten sought advice and information from their peers, which included online forums and message boards, as well as talking to friends and family. Just over four in ten women and 35% of men found this helpful.

It’s for these reasons that we have created Cocoon Health, where you can easily share recommendations of the best healthcare professionals with your loved-ones in private. You can even see which professionals recommend one another. Soon we’ll be adding functionality so that healthcare regulators can verify each health professional’s membership of specific industry bodies. The network is home to osteopaths, physios, massage therapists, personal trainers, yoga teachers, gym instructors, doctors and pyschotherapists. Each one takes care of their patients via their Cocoon profile and benefits from the recommendations of their patients and those of other health professionals.

About Cocoon Health

It’s a social network, it’s free to use and it’s growing fast. Make sure you visit our tour page to find out what it means to have your own Cocoon profile today. We have thousands of health care professionals using the network to care for their patients and to increase referrals. It’s the perfect marketing platform for all practitioners, and it’s completely free! So if you’re a doctor, counsellor, therapist or even a zen guru we invite you to create your Cocoon profile today.