One man in five dies before the age of 65.
TOGETHER we can change that.

We want a new CEO

2.5 days/week
The Men’s Health Forum seeks a dynamic and dedicated individual to serve as its new Chief Executive.
Find out more

Our Manifesto

In the UK, one man in five dies before he reaches 65. Together, we can change that.

Read the Manifesto
Add your support
Sign the petition

Men's Health Week

The annual Men’s Health Week is the week that ends in Fathers' Day. Get involved.

Obesity Health Alliance

In 2016, the Men's Health Forum joined the Obesity Health Alliance

The Obesity Health Alliance is a coalition of 30 national health charities, medical colleges and campaign groups including the Men's Health Forum.

What does the OHA want?

It is campaigning on a ten-point plan.

  1. The Government should introduce a ban on advertisements before the 9pm watershed for food and drink products that are high in saturated fat, salt and sugar. Alongside this, regulation governing on-demand services and online advertisements should be tightened to align with broadcast regulations.
  2. Retailers should be set targets to improve in-store architecture to reduce the display of unhealthy foods in areas such as checkouts and end of aisle displays and increase price promotions of healthier alternative products.
  3. The Government should take action to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) by introducing a 20% tax on SSBs. The impact of this tax should be monitored and evaluated annually with revenue raised reinvested in public health promotion.
  4. The Government should develop an independent set of incremental reformulation targets for industry, backed by regulation and which are measured and time bound. These targets should address salt, sugar and saturated fat levels. Compliance with these targets should be monitored and non-compliance should be backed by meaningful sanctions.
  5. The Government should close the loophole exempting academies and free schools from the School Food Standards. Alongside this the Government should ensure the effective implementation of the cooking and nutritional education qualification into the curriculum.
  6. The Government should commit to ambitious targets and sustained investment in active travel; this should be accompanied by guidance to Directors of Public Health on how to enable active travel at a local level.
  7. The Government should commit to protecting ring fenced public health grants and future increases to enable local authorities to tackle obesity in their localities. 
  8. Alongside continued negotiations at an EU level to ensure the future of the hybrid system of front-of-pack labelling, the Government should approach, not just retailers and manufacturers, but also restaurants and cafes to expand the number of products that feature the hybrid colour-coded front-of-pack nutritional labelling in the UK.
  9. Training curricula for all health professionals should include the role of nutrition and physical activity and obesity and the impact on health which should be examined. This should be alongside continuing professional development opportunities to skill up on counselling and coaching techniques.
  10. The Government should commit to sustained investment to extend and increase the provision and quality of weight management services for families across the UK.
Who is in the OHA?

Other members of the OHA alongside the Men's Health Forum include: Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Action on Sugar, Association for the Study of Obesity, Association of Directors of Public Health, British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine, British Heart Foundation, British Medical Association, British Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society, British Society of Gastroenterology, Cancer Research UK, Children's Food Campaign, Diabetes UK, Faculty of Public Health, Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine, Health Equalities Group, Institute for Health Visiting, Jamie Oliver Food Foundation, National Obesity Forum, Royal College of General Practitioners, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Surgeons, Royal Society for Public Health, Society for Endocrinology, and UK Health Forum. 

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.

Registered with the Fundraising Regulator

Contact
Address
  • The Men's Health Forum
  • 82 Tanner Street
  • London, SE1 3GN

Charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1087375). Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 4142349).