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One You Campaign to Encourage Healthy Lifestyles

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7 March 2016

By Lauren H

Today, Public Health England launched a new campaign called Only You, with the hope of helping middle-aged adults to avoid future diseases and begin to treat their body better. Advertised on the NHS website, the campaign provides us with easy-to-follow advice, and even a quiz to help us determine just how unhealthy we really are. Though this is aimed at middle-aged adults, the website caters for anyone aged 18+.

The quiz is fairly easy and only takes approximately 5-10 minutes to complete. As you go through the process, you will be given extra information on your habits and advice to help you improve. At the end, you will be given a health rating out of 10, and directed to other parts of the website where you can find relevant advice. As well as information on the typical factors required for a healthy lifestyle, such as good eating habits and exercise, the website also provides extra information on sleep and stress – aspects of our everyday life that are hugely significant, but we probably don’t realise are affecting our health as much as everything else.

Research has suggested:

Everyday habits and behaviours, such as eating too much unhealthy food, drinking more than is recommended, continuing to smoke and not being active enough, are responsible for around 40% of all deaths in England, and cost the NHS more than £11 billion a year.

This may surprise a lot of you, and the facts are extremely worrying, but it doesn’t have to stay this way. The campaign urges adults to take control of their life, and change their eating habits before it’s too late. It claims to take a new perspective on having a healthy lifestyle, taking into account many of the problems we face in the modern day.

Professor Sir Muir Gray, clinical adviser for the One You campaign, commented:

“Many diseases that impact people’s health and shorten their active lives can be prevented. Currently 42% of adults in midlife are living with at least one long-term health condition which increase their risk of early death and disability.

“Although it has been customary to blame people for their ‘lifestyle’, we now appreciate that we need to take into account the environmental pressures that make it difficult to make healthy choices, having to sit 8 hours a day at work for example, and then drive an hour home. One You is designed to help every individual identify not only their risks but also the pressures they face in their life and the stress that results, and then support them with personalised tools and advice.”

Currently, over 15 million of us in the UK are living with a long-term health condition, with many spending their retirement in ill health. However, this can be prevented by eating healthily and taking care of your body in middle age. Hopefully this campaign will encourage many of you out there to do just that.

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