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| Labelling Grimsby ‘unhealthy’ won’t make it any better | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Did you ever stare down your high street and think: wow, all these shops. I wonder if they’re slowly killing me? Well, depending on where you live, today could have brought good news, or bad news. A study by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has declared that Grimsby in Lincolnshire has the “unhealthiest” high street in the UK. Hot on its heels in the league table of ill-health is Walsall, then Blackpool. The top 10 also includes Sunderland, Bolton and Bradford. Edinburgh, by contrast, was named the healthiest, followed by Canterbury, with York, Brighton and Cambridge in the top 10. | Did you ever stare down your high street and think: wow, all these shops. I wonder if they’re slowly killing me? Well, depending on where you live, today could have brought good news, or bad news. A study by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has declared that Grimsby in Lincolnshire has the “unhealthiest” high street in the UK. Hot on its heels in the league table of ill-health is Walsall, then Blackpool. The top 10 also includes Sunderland, Bolton and Bradford. Edinburgh, by contrast, was named the healthiest, followed by Canterbury, with York, Brighton and Cambridge in the top 10. |
| I wonder if you’re also starting to notice a pattern here? The RSPH report applied a “Richter scale of health” to measure the “healthiness” of shops and businesses, based on how likely they were to promote healthy/healthier choices, social interaction, access to services and advice, and mental wellbeing. Based on their total scores, the most positive presences on the high street included leisure centres, opticians, libraries and pubs. The most negative ones were payday lenders, betting shops, off-licences and takeaways. The presence of empty shops also led to a deduction of one health point. | I wonder if you’re also starting to notice a pattern here? The RSPH report applied a “Richter scale of health” to measure the “healthiness” of shops and businesses, based on how likely they were to promote healthy/healthier choices, social interaction, access to services and advice, and mental wellbeing. Based on their total scores, the most positive presences on the high street included leisure centres, opticians, libraries and pubs. The most negative ones were payday lenders, betting shops, off-licences and takeaways. The presence of empty shops also led to a deduction of one health point. |
| To give credit where it’s due, the report does recommend things such as increased local authority funding (good luck with that one) | To give credit where it’s due, the report does recommend things such as increased local authority funding (good luck with that one) |
| At a certain level, I suppose there are healthier options than fried chicken, and better ways of investing your money than betting on the horses. But on the other hand: no matter how essential eye tests are, it’s hard to credit the report’s suggestion that opticians are conducive to “mental wellbeing” (opticians are the “endless mattress commercials on podcasts” of the physical world, with their capacity to send you spiralling into a depressive funk). | At a certain level, I suppose there are healthier options than fried chicken, and better ways of investing your money than betting on the horses. But on the other hand: no matter how essential eye tests are, it’s hard to credit the report’s suggestion that opticians are conducive to “mental wellbeing” (opticians are the “endless mattress commercials on podcasts” of the physical world, with their capacity to send you spiralling into a depressive funk). |
| But this isn’t really about shops. The shops are just a symptom. Underlying the report’s findings is a much bigger and more serious public health problem: poverty. “The physical environment surrounds us,” the report proclaims in its opening passages, “and in subtle and not so subtle ways, affects our health.” True enough – but this ambient effect stretches to economic factors as well. | But this isn’t really about shops. The shops are just a symptom. Underlying the report’s findings is a much bigger and more serious public health problem: poverty. “The physical environment surrounds us,” the report proclaims in its opening passages, “and in subtle and not so subtle ways, affects our health.” True enough – but this ambient effect stretches to economic factors as well. |
| If you live a life characterised by constant anxiety about how you’re going to scrape together enough money to pay rent, irregular and inhospitable hours, no time to cook your own food so you have to get something from the takeaway on your way home, no time to socialise so you self-medicate with alcohol from the offy, you will end up – unsurprisingly – living less long, and less well, than an energetic young professional who’s been able to dedicate their life to something they love, or the same person at 50 who’s been able to take early retirement to live off their property portfolio. | If you live a life characterised by constant anxiety about how you’re going to scrape together enough money to pay rent, irregular and inhospitable hours, no time to cook your own food so you have to get something from the takeaway on your way home, no time to socialise so you self-medicate with alcohol from the offy, you will end up – unsurprisingly – living less long, and less well, than an energetic young professional who’s been able to dedicate their life to something they love, or the same person at 50 who’s been able to take early retirement to live off their property portfolio. |
| To give credit where it’s due, the RSPH report does mention the impact of the 2007-08 financial crash on the high street, and recommends things such as the government increasing local authority funding (good luck with that one, lads). But it fails to do anything like enough work to address how economic factors impact on people’s health systematically. And so we end up with the incipient Jamie Oliverism of banning fast-food outlets from opening near schools. | To give credit where it’s due, the RSPH report does mention the impact of the 2007-08 financial crash on the high street, and recommends things such as the government increasing local authority funding (good luck with that one, lads). But it fails to do anything like enough work to address how economic factors impact on people’s health systematically. And so we end up with the incipient Jamie Oliverism of banning fast-food outlets from opening near schools. |
| It doesn’t have to be this way. Just the other day, a report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers named Preston – once a byword for provincial crappiness – as the UK’s “most-improved” urban area. In recent years Preston’s unemployment rate has halved, while the city has also experienced “improvements above the national average for health, transport, the work-life balance of its residents, and for the skills among both the youth and adult populations”. Its secret? A form of radical localism, which has helped inspire John McDonnell’s “alternative models of ownership” report. Notably, Preston has committed to spending money on goods and services from Preston-based firms, as opposed to relying (as many councils do) on outsourcing firms based in London. | It doesn’t have to be this way. Just the other day, a report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers named Preston – once a byword for provincial crappiness – as the UK’s “most-improved” urban area. In recent years Preston’s unemployment rate has halved, while the city has also experienced “improvements above the national average for health, transport, the work-life balance of its residents, and for the skills among both the youth and adult populations”. Its secret? A form of radical localism, which has helped inspire John McDonnell’s “alternative models of ownership” report. Notably, Preston has committed to spending money on goods and services from Preston-based firms, as opposed to relying (as many councils do) on outsourcing firms based in London. |
| And so Preston has tackled problems including public health at their root, by understanding that they are inextricably bound up with the local economy. But of course, implementing these changes also involves vision, will, a certain sort of civic pride. “Investment” doesn’t just mean getting money in, Preston council leader Matthew Brown suggests – it means enabling local people to be actively involved. In this context, one wonders if a report such as the RSPH’s might even have a negative effect. | And so Preston has tackled problems including public health at their root, by understanding that they are inextricably bound up with the local economy. But of course, implementing these changes also involves vision, will, a certain sort of civic pride. “Investment” doesn’t just mean getting money in, Preston council leader Matthew Brown suggests – it means enabling local people to be actively involved. In this context, one wonders if a report such as the RSPH’s might even have a negative effect. |
| By failing to understand the extent to which public health intersects with economic factors, the RSPH report compounds an existing stereotype that places such as Grimsby and Blackpool are just dead-end dumps, places to struggle to get out of rather than work to invest in. The lesson of Preston is that if we want to make the UK’s provincial towns and cities worth living in, then this – not the prevalence of chip shops – is what needs to change. | By failing to understand the extent to which public health intersects with economic factors, the RSPH report compounds an existing stereotype that places such as Grimsby and Blackpool are just dead-end dumps, places to struggle to get out of rather than work to invest in. The lesson of Preston is that if we want to make the UK’s provincial towns and cities worth living in, then this – not the prevalence of chip shops – is what needs to change. |
| • Tom Whyman is an academic philosopher and freelance writer | • Tom Whyman is an academic philosopher and freelance writer |
| Poverty | Poverty |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Social exclusion | Social exclusion |
| Health | Health |
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