Social trends study shows how we compare in healthy living

A press release caught my eye this week. It stated that the French excel at two leisure activities: They spend more time at the table and in bed than any other country surveyed.

The news came from OECD (Orginasation for Economic Co-operation and Development), reputed to be the world's largest and most reliable source of comparable statistics on economic and social data. The organization collects data, looks at trends and analyzes many aspects of life, including economic development, social changes, trade, environment, agriculture, technology, taxation and health. Its Society at a Glance reports give a snapshot of how society changes, and most interestingly, how we compare to other countries.

There are 30 member countries in OECD (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States), and data are compiled using representative samples from each country.

Leisure time around the world

One chapter of the Society at a Glance latest edition is devoted to leisure time, and compares 18 countries’ leisure habits. Leisure is loosely defined as what people do when they’re not working.

Sleep

Most of leisure time is spent sleeping. I used to moan this “waste,” but I now recognize sleep as the cornerstone of health and sanity. The French sleep the most of any people in the report—almost 9 hours a night—but the U.S. comes in second, at more than 8 and a half hours a night. Korea and Japan are at the low end of sleep-time.

Waking leisure

The French spend the most time eating and drinking—more than 2 hours a day. The U.S. is close to the bottom end of the chart, joined by Mexico and Canada, with an average of a little over an hour spent on these activities.

A pity, really, since when people were asked what leisure activities they enjoy most, eating was near the top, right up there with relaxing and socializing. By this measure we have half the fun a Frenchman does.

A big chunk of leisure time is spent watching TV. TV takes up almost half of the leisure time in Mexico and Japan, but we in the U.S. come in third in time spent in front of the TV screen.

Visiting or entertaining friends takes up 34 percent of a typical Turk’s time, and about 16 percent of the typical Americans’ (we’re somewhere in the middle for that, and above the OECD average), and very little time is spent participating in sports—5 percent of time in the U.S., below OECD average.

Men have more fun. They have more leisure time than women, with the greatest disparity in Italy, where men have 80 minutes more a day of disposable time, while women are apparently doing housework. In the U.S., men have about 40 extra minutes of leisure a day compared to women. I wouldn’t get up in arms over this data, as it’s not clear at all how much of our leisure time is spent on “personal care,” and it very well may be that much of the disparity is because (relatively speaking) women spend so much time tending to hair and other personal grooming and maintenance. I keep telling my dear husband how lucky he is to be bald—being bald frees up enough time to pick up another serious hobby.

Health and wellness

Since we didn’t come out on top anywhere in the leisure chapter, nor did we excel in student performance or in equity indicators, I went on to the “Heath Indicators” section of the report, and there, sure enough, we’re leaders.

Although there are high obesity rates (obesity defined as having BMI—Body Mass Index— of greater than 30, and not mere overweight, defined as BMI in the 25-30 range) in many OECD countries, the U.S. is still at the top, with 34.3 percent. Our neighbor to the south is a close contender, with Mexico rating 30 percent (is obesity contagious?), while the U.K. has 24 percent and Greece comes in at 22 percent. What happened to Greece, birthplace of the healthy Mediterranean diet? The traditional ways of eating have been replaced by fast and highly processed foods, and obesity, diabetes and hypertension have skyrocketed at the same time (see here).

The least amount of obesity is seen in Korea (3.5 percent), Japan (3.9 percent), Switzerland (7.7 percent) and Norway (9 percent), with Italy and France about tied at around 10 percent.

The world is fat, but at least there’s equality among the sexes. Overall women are no more or less obese than men.

Other interesting facts about our general health, that fall in line with what advocates of a major overhaul of healthcare often cite: Life expectancy in the U.S. is 24th of the 30 OECD countries (men typically live for 75.2 years, while women live 80.4 years), and below the OECD average, yet the U.S. spends more on healthcare per capita than any other nation. Much more.

I’ll end with a few encouraging statistics:

• Cigarette smoking among teens has gone down dramatically in the U.S.; both boys and girls in the U.S. have the lowest teen smoking and repeated drunkenness rates among the countries reported in the study.

• The percentage of people aged 15 years and over reporting perceived good health in the US is very high—89 percent.

• Life satisfaction in the U.S. is above average.

• Although divorce rates are generally going up in OECD countries, they’re going down in the U.S.

We may not be doing that great in a factual sense compared to our global neighbors (especially in overall life expectancy), but we do seem quite happy with ourselves (and our spouses). And while feeling great is an important step toward being great, taking a glimpse at how people in other nations approach their lives could give us a few good ideas.

Dr. Ayala