So, the life span of people from deprived areas of Scotland is still shorter by as much as 11 years than the average life span of general Scottish population It's mostly thanks to high levels of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and all the other illnesses related to bad diet, alcohol, fags and no exercise.
The government is very, very surprised that despite the fact that they are pumping money into projects that were supposed to improve the health and well being of denizens of said deprived areas, the situation is still the same.
Well, here's a thing, you can't force people to be healthy, especially if choices they have to make every day are obvious for comfort craving monkeys we all are. As long as the price of ready meals is lower than the price of fruit and vegetables, fags are in every corner shop and nicotine replacement therapy only in pharmacies, tv is more attractive than moving one's nicotine and rubbish food filled body to gym, nothing's going to change.
But the fact that people have a choice is a part of democratic freedom. And they can choose to eat, inhale, inject, rub into gums and drink things that are bad for them and in the long run will make their babies addicts from day one and their illness riddled selves live shorter, but it's their choice. There's only as much as you are allowed to do in a democracy, dear concerned government. You can give people support and advice they are free to ignore.
Now, if you want these pesky advice ignoring people to do exactly what you tell them to do and live these bloody 11 years longer on average, well, there's always introducing totalitarian regime.
