Lancet study looked at 16 EU countries and the four nations of the UK as the NHS warns ‘we can’t treat our way out of this obesity crisis’
Scientists have confirmed that we are no longer living longer in a landmark study.
Decades of life expectancy improvements have gone into reverse and fell more in England than other European countries as the NHS warns “we cannot treat our way out of the obesity crisis”. The government-backed study, published in the Lancet Public Health journal, looked at 16 EU countries and the four UK nations.
Life expectancy increases in all countries apart from Norway slowed during the 2011-19 period compared to 1990-2011. England showed the biggest fall in the rate of improvement between these two periods. Then from 2019 to 2021, which covered part of the Covid-19 pandemic period, there was an overall drop in life expectancy in all countries apart from the Republic of Ireland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Belgium.
The countries with the biggest fall in life expectancy were England and Greece with people dying around seven months earlier on average.
Sarah Price, NHS England’s Director for Public Health, said: “This important study reinforces that prevention is the cornerstone of a healthier society. The slowdown in life expectancy improvements, particularly due to cardiovascular disease and cancer, highlights the urgent need for stronger action on the root causes — poor diet, physical inactivity and obesity. More action is needed across society because we cannot treat our way out of the obesity crisis, and we need to stem it at source.”
The research team studied data from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease 2021, drawing on the work of nearly 12,000 researchers in 160 countries. They compared changes in life expectancy, causes of death, and population exposure to risk factors across Europe between 1990–2011, 2011–19, and 2019–21.
During the latest period when many countries saw drops in life expectancy, Scotland saw a fall of around six months while in Wales and Northern Ireland it was just over four months. In contrast Germany, France, Spain, Austria and the Netherlands saw life expectancy drop by between two and three months.
In 2019 Scotland had the lowest average life expectancy of the European nations at 79.48 years and by 2021 this had dropped to 79.00. Wales had an average of 80.6 years in 2019 and by 2021 this had dropped to 80.25 years. Northern Ireland had a life expectancy of 81.0 years which by the end of the period had dropped to 80.65 years. England’s average life expectancy started higher than other UK nations at 81.69 but fell most during the period, dropping to 81.09 by 2021.
Lead researcher Prof Nick Steel, of the University of East Anglia, said: “Advances in public health and medicine in the 20th Century meant that life expectancy in Europe improved year after year. But this is no longer the case. From 1990 to 2011, reductions in deaths from cardiovascular diseases and cancers continued to lead to substantial improvements in life expectancy but decades of steady improvements finally slowed around 2011, with marked international differences.
“We found that deaths from cardiovascular diseases were the primary driver of the reduction in life expectancy improvements between 2011–19. Unsurprisingly, the Covid pandemic was responsible for decreases in life expectancy seen between 2019–21. After 2011, major risks such as obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol either increased or stopped improving in almost all countries. Better cholesterol and blood pressure treatments have not been enough to offset the harms from obesity and poor diets.”
Separate data from the Office for National Statistics shows average UK life expectancy for men was 78.6 years and for women 82.6 years for the period from 2020 to 2022.
Junk food is widely available in the UK while the country spends a lower percentage of GDP on healthcare compared to almost all other European countries. The NHS has much fewer hospital beds and trained medics per 100,000 of the population compared to in the EU. The UK government sets the overall public spending framework but running the NHS is an issue for devolved UK administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Prof Steel added: “Countries like Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium held onto better life expectancy after 2011, and saw reduced harms from major risks for heart disease, helped by government policies. In contrast, England and the other UK nations fared worst after 2011 and also during the Covid pandemic, and experienced some of the highest risks for heart disease and cancer, including poor diets.
“We have high dietary risks in England and high levels of physical inactivity and high obesity levels. These trends are decades long – there isn’t a quick fix. And I guess the message to the current Government is, ‘Great that one of your big three shifts for the NHS is to move to prevention, but it needs to be more than … easy access to scanners and a well man check or well woman check with your already overloaded GP.
“This is about the big, long-term population protections from risk – so engaging with the food industry to improve our national diet to make it easier for people to eat healthier food and make it easier for people to move a little bit in our day-to-day lives.”
Prof John Newton, from the European Centre for Environment and Human Health at the University of Exeter, said: “These results are a cause for concern especially here in the UK, but also some hope. We should be concerned because many European countries including the UK are showing such poor progress but hopeful because addressing the underlying causes of major illnesses appears to be effective.”
Scientists say despite the downturn, humans still have not reached a “biological ceiling” for how long we can live.
Prof Steel added: “Life expectancy for older people in many countries is still improving, showing that we have not yet reached a natural longevity ceiling. Life expectancy mainly reflects mortality at younger ages, where we have lots of scope for reducing harmful risks and preventing early deaths.”
