Malta flops in exercise and healthy eating index

Malta slipped down the European league tables on health after a significant drop in the percentage of people who reported exercising regularly and eating healthy.

The local score for health, which is part of the just-released broader EU index on gender equality, fell from 2nd to 13th, the slowest of any EU member state over the past year.

This decline is primarily due to data on physical activity and fruit or vegetable consumption from the European Health Interview Survey, which is conducted every five years.

In the 2014/15 survey, 42.7% of women and 45.1% of men reported doing at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week or consuming at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. increase.

However, five years later, a survey conducted between November 2019 and March 2020 found that this proportion had fallen to 21.7% for women and 21.9% for men.

Malta’s overall health score is 87.8 points, just below the EU average of 88.7.

It was built on several criteria, including good health, life expectancy at birth, smoking and harmful drinking, and access to medical and dental services.

Maltese did slightly better when it came to smoking and drinking.

According to this year’s index, 73.5% of women and 58.5% of men do not smoke or drink alcohol, compared with 70% of women and 56.3% of men in the previous index.

Therefore, recent data show that the number of women and men smoking and harmful drinking in the country is decreasing, but the change is small.

progress in gender equality

The Health Score forms part of the annual Gender Index published by the EU’s Center for Gender Equality, placing Malta 13th out of 27 countries.

The Gender Equality Index measures progress in gender equality over time in various aspects of life.

This indicator gives each member country a score from 1 to 100 based on the gap between women and men, achievement in jobs, money, knowledge, power, health, etc.

Malta scored a total of 65.6 compared to the European average of 68.6.

This year’s index data is mostly from 2020 and does not include the UK. Between 2010 and 2020, Malta’s score increased by 11.2 points, mainly due to significant improvements in the areas of work and time.

This is measured through median and net income, percentage at risk of poverty, income distribution, etc., while caring for relatives, household chores, sports and leisure activities, volunteering and charitable events count towards the island’s score. used to It will be the realm of time.

In more than a decade, Malta’s progress has been one of the biggest, resulting in a five place jump in the rankings.

However, when comparing data for 2010 and 2020, Malta’s score decreased by 0.2 points in the knowledge domain, indicating stagnation. As a result, the island’s standings in this domain dropped him three places and he is now in his ninth place with 65.2 points.