Movember

”Winter is just around the corner, and with it an important event on the calendar in Men’s Health Awareness Month and the Movember campaign getting under way.”

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“One of the core strands of what Movember does is mental health, and there is a huge amount of suicide in Ireland,” he said. “Four out of five suicides in Ireland are men. A lot of that is preventable, and a lot of it comes from loneliness and isolation. Particularly in rural Ireland, that is something that’s happening all the time, and something Movember wanted to be here to talk about.”

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“While the aim is to raise awareness and funding for serious topics, Movember is a bit of craic

“It’s very significant with Movember, growing a moustache – they bring awareness to physical and mental health for men during the month.“On November 1, they clean shave, start growing the moustaches, and that’s where the barber chair comes in.”

This has a few mentions of Movember so think it was prompted by it:

Men in this country are dying prematurely at a rate 40pc higher than women, despite advancements in longevity. Many of these deaths are preventable, according to experts. So what’s going wrong?

Some extracts from this long article:

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Many of these are either preventable or highly treatable when caught early. However, it seems Irish men consistently underutilise screening services, such as Bowel Screen, Ireland’s free colorectal cancer screening programme, which, when compared by gender, sees uptake rates of just 24pc among men compared to 30pc among women.

“It’s free from the age of 60, but the adherence rate is low,” explains Dr Noel Richardson, of the Department of Health and Sport Sciences at the South East Technological University, who co-authored the report The Real Face of Men’s Health, which was published last Tuesday. “Only one in four men take up the opportunity to have a free check. We need to investigate what the barriers are.”

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Again, the drivers here are largely behavioural, due to relatively high obesity rates, more risky patterns of alcohol consumption, and comparatively low physical activity levels compared to Irish females.“Men put on weight earlier in the life cycle than women, so they’re living with excess weight for longer, which isn’t good,” Richardson explains. “And they also put weight on centrally, whereas women put it on more at the extremities, and of course, as a rule, men aren’t as proactive in terms of attempting to lose weight as women are.”

The data reveals that a corpulent 63pc of Irish men are overweight or obese, compared to a slimmer, 50pc of women. Men also report poorer dietary habits, with only 22pc eating five or more portions of fruit and vegetables daily, compared to 33pc of their female counterparts.The physical activity picture is mixed however, says Richardson. While men are more likely than women to meet national physical activity guidelines (50pc vs 33pc), both sexes experience significant declines with age.

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Males account for 72pc of all premature deaths from accidents, for example, and a tragic four out of five suicides. Men also account for two out of three accidental poisoning deaths, three out of four deaths due to falls, and four out of five road traffic deaths, according to the statistics analysed in the report.“Men are more likely to take risks,” says Richardson. “With driving, the delay in terms of their maturity to understand the risks involved in speeding and so on is a big factor and I think generally there’s a lower threshold to risk-taking in males.”Heartbreakingly, the data shows that for young men aged 15-34, external causes account for more than half of all premature deaths. This highlights the urgent need for targeted interventions addressing risk-taking behaviours, workplace safety and mental health support for younger men, according to the report.

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Men tend to smoke more than women and typically start earlier, according to the data, with first cigarettes tried at age 15 and daily smoking beginning at 18.

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Men are more likely than women to start drinking younger, more regularly and heavily, and are more likely to seek treatment for alcohol issues. Males have a greater tendency to drink weekly (43pc men vs 33pc women) and multiple times per week (26pc men vs 17pc women).“Men drink more and binge drink more. The volume of alcohol consumed and the pattern of alcohol consumption is riskier,” Richardson says.

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