Younger UK generations showing poorer health than predecessors

Younger UK generations are showing poorer health than their predecessors at the same age, a new study suggests.

People born more recently were not generally healthier than those born in earlier generations when compared at the same age, the study found.

Researchers from University College London, King’s College London and the University of Oxford compared physical and mental health measures across different generations at equivalent stages of life by reviewing studies tracking the health of tens of thousands of people born in Britain between 1946 and 2002.

The review drew on British birth cohort datasets from 51 studies that have followed people from birth into adulthood.

For several conditions, particularly obesity, mental ill health and diabetes, poorer health was more common in more recent generations than in earlier generations at the same stage of life. Researchers described this pattern as a “generational health drift”.

The trend was most consistently observed for obesity and mental health. Evidence for worsening diabetes rates was also found when comparing Generation X with Baby Boomers.

Researchers said the differences were unlikely to be explained solely by improved healthcare, increased screening or better diagnosis.

They pointed out that obesity does not depend on a medical diagnosis and that diabetes was also identified using objective biological measures.

Mental health comparisons were based on people reporting symptoms of depression and anxiety using established methods designed to allow fair comparisons across generations.

Researchers said more data was needed to understand the drivers of the trend, which they said had probably been shaped by changing exposure to social and environmental risk factors such as unhealthy diets and reduced physical activity.

They added that many of these factors were likely to be preventable.

The study team warned that the trend could have significant implications for public policy and healthcare planning. They said greater investment may be needed to support growing numbers of people living with long-term conditions.

“If more recent generations are ‘drifting’ backwards in health, it implies that society is not reaching the biological limits of health improvement,” said Laura Gimeno, lead author of the study and a PhD student at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at University College London.

“Instead, we’re seeing the consequences of preventable social and environmental exposures that have shaped population health over time and across generations.”

Researchers acknowledged that Britain’s older birth cohort studies include less ethnic diversity than the current UK population of the same age.

However, they said similar patterns have also been observed in other studies using more ethnically representative datasets.

Almost a third of the EU population is expected to be aged 65 or above by 2050, according to research on Europe’s ageing population.