On 18 February 1990, the Observer asked 2,159 adult Britons how healthy they thought they were, rifling through the nation’s bathroom cupboards, bedrooms and fridges with a variety of probing questions. They included ‘Do you take tranquillisers, antidepressants or sleeping pills?’, ‘Are you worried about losing your hair?’ and, most chillingly, ‘Describe your teeth.’
The results did not make for cheery reading, but the conclusion that ‘living in the wrong part of the country, or among the wrong class, and being the wrong sex, can seriously damage your health’ was greeted with a surprise we would not feel now. Women reported particularly poor health, were twice as likely as men to be taking antidepressants, suffering from migraines, excessive tiredness, ‘stress at home’ and depression. It prompted the question: ‘Is being female a sickness?’
Being northern, too, was bad news, with Yorkshire and Humberside feeling distinctly off-colour: ‘Worst headaches, highest cholesterol, most depressed.’ Farther north still, ‘The Scots are toothless; their blood pressure boils and their joints creak.’
Drinkers thought they were fine, with teetotallers reporting more headaches, digestive problems and high blood pressure. Addiction specialist Professor James Edwards was sceptical: this was ‘so at odds with other research that no sensible conclusions can be drawn’. Predictably, Edwards also suspected some serious booze underreporting (only 3% of Britons admitted to being ‘heavy drinkers’), calling the results ‘highly suspect’.
A survey of celebrity health, however, was surprisingly candid. Kingsley Amis, 67, said he was ‘very overweight’ and did no regular exercise, but protested ‘I go up and down stairs a lot’ and admitted to drinking more than 10 units of alcohol a day. Ken Livingstone, 44, confessed to fewer than four units normally, but admitted on holiday: ‘I can drink a bottle of wine and half a bottle of spirits a day.’ Meanwhile, morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, 79, declared herself ‘a healthy bod’: a non-smoker and only occasional drinker. Did she use alternative medicines? ‘I eat a lot of salad,’ she said cryptically.
