Analysis Finds Scottish Population at Risk
The news is not good for the population of Scotland. According to a recent Science Daily release, the adult population likes to enjoy life to the fullest indulgence while moving very little. Recent research has found that 97.5 percent of the adult population is likely to smoke cigarettes, drink heavily, be physically inactive, have a poor diet or be overweight.
University of Glasgow, Scotland’s David Conway worked with a team of researchers to examine data from 6574 participants in the Scottish Health Survey 2003. In the process, they found a strong association between low income and the existence of a number of these different risk factors.
According to Conway’s analysis, roughly two-thirds of the population is overweight or obese. Researchers found that another two-thirds are not physically active enough to be considered healthy and most of the population seems to have a poor diet. In the process of examining this data, the researchers also determined that multiple risk factors were found among those with low educational achievements and those residing in the most impoverished areas.
In this study, the existence of multiple behavioral risk factors was high as 86 percent have at least two risk factors; 55 percent showed three or more risk factors; and almost 20 percent had four or all five risk factors. One important note is that all behaviors were self-reported, indicating the real situation could be even worse than the figures suggest.
Conway noted that participants in this survey could feel it necessary to give more favorable answers in reporting their own behavior. When alcohol consumption according to self-reported intake was compared with alcohol sales, the findings suggest self-reporting could miss true consumption by as much as 50 percent.
