Men’s Health Week 2017 – Do YOU have a hazardous waist?

22/05/17 . News

Men’s Health Week 2017 – which runs from June 12-18 – is going to be themed around the problem of abdominal obesity – or ‘belly fat’ – with men being challenged “Do YOU have a hazardous waist?”

The Men’s Health Forum, which organises the week, will be:

Providing materials to enable people to set up events around the country
Running an active social media campaign
Launching new research into the provision of weight management services to men – and the rate at which men are referred to them

Martin Tod, Chief Executive of the Men’s Health Forum commented:

Men are more likely to be overweight, more likely to face health problems such as diabetes because they are overweight, and less likely to get support to tackle their weight problems from health professionals. And when they are offered help, too many of the services they are offered don’t reflect the latest research and don’t meet their needs.

Our goal for Men’s Health Week 2017 is to help more men take action to address their weight problems, but also to get more services in place that are designed to work for men.

Find out more:

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

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