WHAT IS HEALTHY LIVING, ANYWAY?

The 2018 AIA Healthy Living Index survey shows that as people across the Asia-Pacific region become dissatisfied with their health and habits, they are responding by adopting healthier lifestyles.

The proportion of respondents satisfied with their health has fallen to 81 per cent in 2018 from 84 per cent in 2016. But that doesn’t mean people are behaving less healthily. In fact, to take one indicator in the Index, the average time respondents said they spent exercising each week has gone up to 3.6 hours from 3 hours in 2016. Exercise times ranged from a high of 5.6 hours each week in Mainland China to a low of 1.4 hours in Sri Lanka.

Several factors could explain these changes. For instance, a growing middle class in the region’s emerging economies is being exposed to problems typical of richer countries. As lifestyles grow sedentary and calorie intakes rise, pushing the region towards an obesity epidemic - 1 billion people in the region are estimated to be overweight or obese - so too do associated health risks such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

At the same time, as technology enhances awareness of these issues (about 40 percent of respondents across the region are aware of devices that track blood pressure, heart rate and steps walked, for instance) expectations are changing as to what constitutes healthy living. And people in the region are evidently becoming proactive in countering the problem.

So the fact that only 62 per cent rate themselves positively on the amount of exercise they are getting - down nine percentage points from 2016 – isn’t necessarily a worry, if it’s just an indication of changing expectations of what it means to live healthily. 

So, what does healthy living mean for those in the region? Going by their budgets, a good diet is on top of the list. Respondents said they spend as much on healthy eating (28 per cent of their healthy living budget) as medical treatments, while 20 per cent is spent on exercise, and the rest on supplements and activities such as meditation.

Issues such as air, water and noise pollution, as well as food safety, are among the top five concerns in the region, according to the study.

Getting enough sleep is also a crucial factor in a healthy life. The research shows people are sleeping even less than they want, with the average gap between actual and desired hours of sleep rising to 1.2 hours in 2018 from 1 hour in 2016. Australia shows a steep drop-off, with only 66 per cent saying they sleep enough, down from 76 per cent in 2016. People in Vietnam and India, though, manage to sleep on average 7 hours and 15 minutes each day – the most among all the survey markets.

These disparate trends could be tied to screen time, as studies have shown that using mobile devices at night affects sleep quality and efficiency. This is in line with mobile broadband penetration trends, which show Australia having 100 per cent mobile broadband access compared to less than 50 percent of the population in Vietnam and under 20 per cent in India.

This issue is emblematic of the transformational changes affecting the Asia-Pacific region, driven by technology and changing demographics. The research findings throw a spotlight on the evolving behaviour, expectations and thinking across the region of what constitutes an ideal, healthy lifestyle. Because the Index measures a mixture of habits and attitudes, it might not always move upwards as people’s expectations of what it means to live healthily change. But as long as they are taking steps to meet their own changing expectations, they’ll stay on the path to healthier living.