'Society, not biology, making making men more suicidal'

24/02/15 . Blog

Article in the Telegraph highlights the role of economic pressures on men's mental health.

What are the factors affecting men's mental health and suicide? Our report Untold Problems looked at the issues in men's mental health. Today, an article by Mike Snelle in the Telegraph picks up the issue of work and economic pressures hitting men:

men are taught that the highest indicator of success is economic – our financial worth is synonymous with our value as people. The constant bombardment of advertising reinforces the notion that to buy more is to be more. We are trained to be in competition with one another, and rewarded for ruthlessness.

The Men's Health Forum recently reported on the new suicide statistics showing another big rise in the suicide rate among middle-aged men and argued we need to do more sooner.

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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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