The ‘Glasgow effect’ basically talks about the unexplained link between poor health and the low life expectancy of people living in Glasgow. This compares to those who live in the rest of Great Britain and Europe. Despite, lower income levels are usually associated with poor health and a shorter life expectancy, it has been proven that poverty alone doesn’t appear to be the cause of the health issues in Glasgow. Other cities which are equally as deprived are: Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, which have higher life expectancies, and the top 10% of affluent areas of Glasgow have a lower life expectancy than the same group in other cities. There have been suggestions as to why this is and there are many reasons, which include: vitamin D deficiency and the cold winters Glasgow receives.

Part of Scottish people’s unhealthy diets is the fact we are renouned for deep fried food, excessive drinking and fatty foods. Fatty foods have a huge influence on Scottish people because everywhere you go there is a chip shop or takeaway right around the corner and this can become a habit. This can be said for alcohol and the fact that a huge part of Scottish culture is drinking and the idea that we drink to get drunk, and to get drunk, it consists of consuming an unhealthy amount of alcohol. We consider it the norm to drink as much as we do from those around us. This can have a detrimental effect on our health.

To what extent are Scottish people healthy?

I personally don’t think that there is a definite answer to this question because there are people in Scotland who live a healthy lifestyle and eat healthy, however there are those who don’t follow a healthy lifestyle and there are a number of reasons for this.

Scotland may be considered to be healthy as mortality rate trends are decreasing. For example, the death rates for coronary heart disease has fallen by 45% and the death rates for cancer has decreased by 10% (17% for males and 5% for females). This highlights that there is something positive about the way Scottish people are living their lives.

However, the alcohol-related death rate has increased for both males and females. This shows that because of our huge drinking culture, no one has really considered decreasing the consumption of alcohol in their lifestyle and diets.