Scottish people are healthy to a fair extent. It’s not fair to say that all Scottish people are unhealthy as the way individuals chose to go about their lives varies massively. When it comes to diet however, the percentage of adults meeting the 5 a day recommendation has not changed much from 2003 to 2013 with a small increase from 21% to 22% which isn’t good enough for 10 years difference. Children require many fruit and vegetables in their diets to allow for proper functioning and growth, however in 2013 children actually consumed less portions of fruit and vegetables per day than adults with 2.7 portions. So it could be said that the vast majority of Scottish people have to improve on their diets to improve their health.

Within children’s physical activity, there is a decline in activity with increased age. From 2008 until 2013, with the expectation of 2012 this was mostly seen within girls than boys. During the ages of 5-7 years old the percentage of girls participating in physical activity was high at 81%. However during 13-15 years this declined to 51%. Physical activity is usually higher within boys as the percentages for them doing physical activity were 86% and this declined to 68%.  This shows that with age there is always a decline in physical activity and this has been seen throughout the years. Within schools and at home physical activity could be encouraged from parents and teachers which could result in better health outcomes for children and teenagers in Scotland as a whole.

Health in Scotland can also be affected by the intake of alcohol consumption. A person is established as drinking at hazardous or harmful amount of alcohol if they are a man drinking more than 21 units in a  week. For women drinking more than 14 units in a week could result in massive health disadvantages.  In 2013,  slightly over a fifth which was 22% of men and 16% of women drank at hazardous or harmful levels. This therefore shows that alcohol intake in Scotland can result in later health complications or problems as people tend to ignore the amount of alcohol that should be consumed. This is also a problem as excessive amounts of alcohol could result in drink driving, premature death, drug use and making stupid decisions. However, again it isn’t fair to say that everybody in Scotland consumes too much alcohol which would have a disadvantage to their health.  These three examples of how health may be affected does point more to Scotland being unhealthy than healthy.