Moving women’s health up the agenda

For years, women’s health has been overlooked, underfunded, and under researched. 

On average, women in the UK live longer than men. But recent trends have shown that healthy life expectancy has declined more rapidly for women than men, meaning they are spending more years in poor health.

So, what can we do to ensure that women’s health gets the attention it needs?

In a recent episode of Spread the Health, presenter and health expert Shakira Akabusi spoke about women’s health – and what we can do to improve it.

Maternal health needs to be a bigger conversation

Pregnancy and maternal health are often left out of conversations about health. It’s important to have these conversations, says Shakira, especially when they’re ones that people find uncomfortable.

Postnatal depression and anxiety are just one of many health challenges affecting new mothers. Shakira describes her own experiences with postnatal anxiety as “extreme”, explaining that if often doesn’t display in the ways you would expect. She highlights how it was affecting her sleep schedule due to obsessive compulsions:

Despite her struggles, Shakira still found it difficult to get help. Most women, she says, simply don’t have the bandwidth to ask for the help they need.

So, what’s the solution? Shakira believes we need to look at the habits and environments around mothers – including their sleep, diet, nutrition and exercise. A better focus on exercise and movement can also have a significant impact on both mental and physical health.

Getting young women and girls into sports

We know that laying down good behaviours at a young age can lead to lifelong habits. So how do we ensure that young women and girls get into – and stay in – sports and physical activity?

Providing environments for young girls to stay in sports is “huge”, says Shakira.

One element of this is providing education around the menstrual cycle, she says, so that girls can recognise a regular period and boys can understand the changes their peers are going through.

Sports environments also need to be made comfortable for young women and girls. For example, providing toilets at football pitches or playing fields to ensure that they can stay for a full session of sport comfortably.

Health doesn’t happen overnight

“Health is about consistency, longevity and patience”, says Shakira. But our society doesn’t make that easy. In fact, Shakira argues that our society isn’t conducive to health at all.

She cites high sugar content foods, increased stress, and difficulty finding time to exercise as common barrier to enabling everyone to be healthy.

On top of this, misinformation and clickbait content are making it harder to find useful health information.

Often, influencers and content creators are trying to sell you a “quick fix” – but this isn’t going to give you the sustainable, long-term health you need, Shakira says.

Real change will only happen when everyone has access to the things that make them healthy.

What are the solutions to improving women’s health?

With the renewed Women’s Health Strategy recently published, women’s health has been given a spotlight.

But what action needs to be taken to make change?

For Shakira, there are four key elements that need to be addressed:

Building health in workplaces

Shakira explains that workplaces need the structures around them to allow employees to be healthy – including providing proper breaks to get nutritious food, allowing staff to work from home, or providing flexible hours to accommodate commuting and caring responsibilities.

Addressing the systemic barriers to health

Shakira explains that health isn’t just down to individual choice and calls for more focus on giving people access to the things they need to be healthy.

Better care from day one of pregnancy

To better support maternal health and pregnancies, Shakira says we need more consistent care plans from pre-pregnancy to ensure complete care. This should follow women from conception, through to pregnancy, postpartum and menopause, she says.

Prioritising movement 

Movement is key to ensuring good physical and mental health. Shakira points out that “Every single human being has a body, and every single body needs to be needs to be moved and was designed to be moved”, highlighting that even if you have limited or restricted movement, doing any physical activity you can will have a real impact.