My friend Suzanne recently confided in me about her boyfriend Vince’s unhealthy lifestyle. “I’m worried about him,” she confessed. “He likes to drink, smoke cigarettes, and eat meat and potatoes. Where are the vegetables? What about lung cancer? And the only exercise he gets is surfing once a week!” They’ve had arguments and tension around the issue of Vince’s lackadaisical attitude toward taking care of himself. “Last Friday, he barbecued steak, so I made salad, broccoli, and baked potatoes. Guess what he chose to eat?” Suzanne asked, rolling her eyes.
A typical scenario.
Like many other American women, Suzanne would like her man to cut down the drinking and smoking, have some vegetables once in awhile, and, if it wasn’t too much to ask, to go to the doctor and dentist for routine check-ups. Vince refuses. All efforts to get him to be proactive in his health care have ended in Vince telling her not to nag him, in an outright fight, or in Vince ignoring her and the issue of his health care. “He ate the steak and potatoes,” Suzanne went on, “but he pushed his broccoli off to the side and just picked at the salad … that was after he’d drowned it in ranch dressing.”
The facts.
In general, men let their health care slide. (Some men are proactive in their health care, and if the man you love is one of these, you are blessed.) In an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Jill Rafuse wrote that men are more likely than women to let their health care slide, even when they have symptoms of a serious problem. Recently, men have become more accepting of healthy diets, but on the whole, several articles report that men are less likely to be proactive in their health care: they see the doctor less, have less nutritious diets, are less informed about preventative care, and even brush their teeth less. As a matter of fact, according to the European Journal of Dental Education, even male dental students report brushing their teeth less than their female counterparts!
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