Men’s Health and Funding

Health is an important factor of an individual’s life. A healthy mind and body helps a person to work efficiently and naturally helps in leading a happy and cheerful life. However in today’s busy life we often tend to ignore it. Although ignoring it for long can become a serious issue and might cause chronic disease as well.

The Health Organizations regionally and worldwide are emphasizing more on ‘how an individual can remain healthy and find ways to remain healthy in their busy lives. They overemphasize this trend on women and deviate their focus from men’s health. The health organizations since they came into existence mainly focus more on women and children’s health issues while intentionally or unintentionally often deviate from men’s health. Men are considered to be the backbone of almost every household, they tend to overwork themselves in order to provide better lifestyles to their families and this might lead to be the cause of various chronic disease which are common in men such as heart failure, diabetics, cancer and various other problems.

According to the survey conducted by few organizations it is estimated that 46.4 % of the male population suffer from chronic diseases which is more than of women. That means this is one of the main factors where we evidently see that men die sooner than women. Even in our contemporary society we see that men are expected to have a decent job, earn money and fulfill the demands of the family members. From the childhood the burden of being financially independent and responsibilities are imposed on them that straight away becomes the cause of anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and other mental illness. They face more pressure than women in these terms. Not only family pressures they face similar issues in workplace as well which makes it very tough for them to deal and cope up with the pressure, they are expected to work ideally for the authorities because of which mental disorders among most of the men starts at a very tender age. It is estimated that about 30.6% on an average men face mental illness or have gone through that phase. According to some experts this is the main root cause for suicides also. Organizations should also focus on the emergency like situation where men are less prone to discuss than women.

The question that occurs here is WHY? Why does the organization don’t raise funds and take initiatives on men’s health issues? The reason may be as simple as: Experts suspect that men die younger in large part because society conditions them to take greater risks in their youth, and socially ignore declining health as they age. It is ignored in spite of the well known fact that men have more risk. It is also because women and children in many parts of the world have the privilege of free health because they are regarded as dependent on men for finances. While men do not have such privilege which gives them a sort of disadvantage. Apart from the biological factors the reason could also be because men are supposed to be financially independent it has become a notion in society that they are capable enough to pay up for their treatment.

Governments also focus on the funding of the health organizations which work for women and children’s health issues. Not only is this the amount of organizations very less than other organizations which again becomes the cause of disadvantage to men’s health issues. Men’s health organizations and Ngo’s  are also unable to get the funds because of lack of awareness which can be countered by spreading more awareness about these to large masses of population.

It’s high time to raise awareness about men’s health issues so that they are able to have better lives like others and do not fall at the hands of chronic diseases and mental illness. Just like others, men should also have access to the funding. The societal norms pressures, expectations must be kept at bay for men’s health and issues regarding their funding get resolved.