Are Scottish people ‘unhealthy’? A question posed to me in this mornings lecture. My immediate response was, perhaps we are unhealthy. But how is it possible to generalize with so many factors impacting on this decision. With factors ranging from education, to wealth to socio-economic factors.

When we think about the concept of ‘Scottishness’, We think of things like ‘Irn Bru’, ‘Haggis’ and deep fried … well – anything. When we look at this we can probably tell that Scottish people are not known to have the healthiest of diets. The Scottish Government has found that 28% of children are at risk of being ‘overweight’.

Also, compared to the rest of the UK and the rest of Europe – Scotland is deemed ‘less healthy’. This again could be because of our Scottish culture. But there are other factors influencing this too!

Hereditary health conditions – passed down through family genes – could be one such factor to this. Things such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease can run through a family’s blood. Combined with the typical ‘unhealthy’ diet and lack of exercise that us Scots tend to have – can amplify the severity and fatalities linked to these diseases. According to data publishes by the World Health Organisation – heart disease accounted for 9.66% of total deaths in France during 2014. The UK however, 17.21% of the total deaths were labelled to heart disease. Although the change is less that one percent, it is possible that this is down to the healthier diet that French people are known to have.

So although many cases of these diseases could be hereditary – I think it is fair to say that Scottish people could be labelled as ‘unhealthy’ due to the factors of a poorer diet, and a lack of exercise. However, in retrospect – It is my firm opinion that it would be unfair, and also uneducated to presume this when there are so many factors that influence this argument.

So my answer? It is my opinion that Scottish people could be considered ‘unhealthy’.