On 18 February 1990, the Observer asked 2,159 adult Britons how healthy they thought they were, rifling through the nation’s bathroom cupboards, bedrooms and fridges with a variety of probing questions. They included ‘Do you take tranquillisers, antidepressants or sleeping pills?’, ‘Are you worried about losing your hair?’ and, most chillingly, ‘Describe your teeth.’
The results did not make for cheery reading, but the conclusion that ‘living in the wrong part of the country, or among the wrong class, and being the wrong sex, can seriously damage your health’ was greeted with a surprise we would not feel now. Women reported particularly poor health, were twice as likely as men to be taking antidepressants, suffering from migraines, excessive tiredness, ‘stress at home’ and depression. It prompted the question: ‘Is being female a sickness?’
