I was strolling through some of the data from my happiness survey taking place here in Burlington and came across some interesting findings regarding how respondents view their health. As I’ve mentioned in the past, health is very highly correlated with happiness and so understanding how we view our health can offer some insight into the way we perceive our overall well-being/happiness.
When asked to name the healthiest person they know, respondents answered 13% of the time with the person they are “coupled” with (wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, etc), however when asked to name the unhealthiest person they know, that number drops to just 2%. I suppose we like to date healthy people. “Friend”, by the way, is the winner for both questions earning 26% of the healthiest and 35% of the unhealthiest. This disparity suggests perhaps that we are 9% more likely to befriend people who are less healthy than ourselves. Interesting.
Other quick results include that 78% of respondents are either unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with their health while 91% say they’re in better health than the average person. When we then narrow the reference group we see that 85% of respondents believe they have worse health than their neighbors while 81% of report being in better health than their friends and 87% being in better health than their co-workers.
These results bring up some interesting questions that I’d like to leave open for readers to interpret. Why do you think people are unsatisfied with their health while also feeling they’re healthier than the average person? What explains the trend that we feel we have worse health than our neighbors but better health than our friends or co-workers?
- Jeff
Burlington, VT is healthiest city, CDC says: MSNBC </a?
According to the CDC, Burlington is the healthiest city in the country. 92% of resident respondents said that they are in good or very good health. What you're finding is the same findings as what they did, which I would imagine is a good thing in terms of consistency of studies and that your sample is likely as effective as the CDC's. They're unsatisfied because while they are likely eating heady food from their CSA or Co-op, they might not exercise as much as they want, or something of the like. Sounds like folks in Burlington are just finicky about where they think they "should" be healthwise, yet they are basically a healthy, hearty constituency.
CDC'd.
This rub is at the crux of the US psyche. Someone like Ben Bagdikian or Noam Chompsky would say that it the over-saturation of advertising and the concentration of media in so few countries that leads to our dissatisfaction in our own health. We are constantly bombarded with images of slim, sexy, “healthy”, and photoshopped photos of people all the time. As a result we buy a bunch o’ stuff to better craft the image of ourselves other people see. Because we tend to live near people who are in our own social class, we are exposed to this constructed image our neighbors portray over the fence. As Robert Putnam notes, we know our neighbors less and less and thus have only this constructed image to go by. We’re judging their health by their stuff. With our friends, though, we know their habits and their routines. Some people argue that we surround ourselves who make us feel better about ourselves (never bring a wingman better looking than you). I’m not sure that’s the case. It would take further probing to see what the nature of friendship is at this time…
As for the “average person”, there is a recent news media campaign against “obesity”. You ever notice how your “lucky number” shows up everywhere? Well, if you have something on your mind, you will notice it more often. If you keep hearing about how fat the US is, you will notice all the fat people. Therefore, when you say “health of the average person” we have this idea that the US is full of fatties. Weight and health are dangerously equated to the point that employers, insurance agencies, and soon the government want to regulate diets and exercise to make people “healthier”. Even though most of us fail the obesity criteria, few of us would admit we think we’re fat.
For what it’s worth, I think I’m probably the unhealthiest writer for Economixt.