Gen X is in worse health than boomers – and I have a few theories as to why

People in my age group are experiencing poorer physical and mental health than their elders at the same stage. Is this down to UPFs and booze, or something more complicated?

I almost choked on my bird-food breakfast recently, reading that gen Xers are in worse health than boomers. Research by the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies, on approximately 8,000 participants aged about 50 from the 1970 British Cohort Study, found that my generation is experiencing “worse physical and mental health across adulthood than earlier-born generations”.

Come on! How? We have better health education and pharmaceuticals than any previous generation, we’ve been browbeaten into cultivating our microbiomes and hitting our step counts, harassed to stand up (sitting’s worse than smoking!), jump around (protect your bones!) and pop creatine (unsure). Yet we’re still unhealthier than our elders?

Apparently: only 41% of the 1970 cohort rated their health excellent or very good compared with 50% of the 1958 lot surveyed in 2008, when they were in their early 50s. Meanwhile, a higher proportion of gen X reported having diabetes (9% v 6%) and were obese (32% v 26%). We also reported more symptoms of psychological distress.

Assuming we can discount fuzzy peach bath pearls or plaid shirts turning out to be mysteriously toxic, what’s happening to gen X? I have theories. For a start, this study uses self-reported health data. Maybe we’re more inclined to admit weakness and health worries? That might not be all bad – 10% more gen X than boomer women consulting a doctor about their mental health could, actually, reflect our greater openness rather than the fact we’re falling apart (it’s probably both).

A recent US study also found we’re the only generation currently drinking more now than before Covid. The researchers theorised it’s a stress-related hangover from the pandemic. And speaking of stress, demographic shifts mean many gen Xers are squished in a caring “triple-decker sandwich”: 56% have adult children at home (I bet all 56% are worried about their future); 34% with kids under 18 are also caring for ageing parents.

We also grew up in the golden age of UPFs. My husband’s madeleine de Proust is tinned ravioli and I remember my busy working mother gleefully buying our first M&S ready meal – chicken kiev, my madeleine. We might be fibremaxxing now, but we’re products of the era that birthed the Pop Tart: maybe the (kiev) chickens are coming home to roost?

But my strongest, grimmest hunch is that gen X aren’t special: we’re all less healthy. A 2024 UCL study found that while boomers are living longer, they’re doing so in poorer health than their parents, living with more chronic disease and a higher incidence of cancer, lung disease, type 2 diabetes and other serious conditions, a phenomenon the lead author, Laura Gimeno, described as “generational health drift”.

Down the cohorts, there’s the worrying rise in cancers among under-50s: in England, prostate cancer rates have quadrupled and bowel, kidney and uterine cancer diagnoses have more than doubled. This summer a damning report by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health warned that without drastic action, the UK is risking “raising one of the unhealthiest generations of children ever”. A King’s Fund analysis this year found that healthy life expectancy in England was more than two years lower in 2022–24 than in 2017-19.

This is compounded by income inequality (which in the UK is among the highest in Europe) and financial insecurity. Deprivation is starkly correlated with poor health outcomes across all generations – the same King’s Fund study showed a difference of almost 20 years of healthy life between the least and most deprived areas (69.2 and 49.8). In 2023, the Institute for Public Policy Research reported the UK was getting “poorer and sicker”, and while the economy is reportedly picking up, we’re still pretty poor and sick.

The gen X responders in the 1970 British Cohort Study rated health as more important than money. Hopefully our (mostly gen X) politicians feel the same and tackle the underlying issues – health and care services at breaking point, poverty, poor housing, pollution – with the urgency they need. The Centre for Longitudinal Studies started a new study this month following 30,000 UK babies. It would be wonderful if a few decades from now, as gen X staggers into decrepitude (if we’re lucky), it had good news to report.