The UK is now the most miserable place in the world – except for one other country, a ‘worrying’ new mental wellbeing report has found.
With the Covid pandemic still in fresh memory and many struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, it may not come as a total surprise that Britain didn’t score on top of the list for wellness.
However, just how low we fared is alarming.
Only the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan ranked worse, with the UK placing 70th out of 71 for overall mental wellbeing, giving it an average score of 49 compared to 65 globally.
Currently the UK government advises against all but essential travel to parts of Uzbekistan’s border with Afghanistan, and around 17% people in the Central Asian state live under the poverty line, according to the Asian Development Bank.
The new report, carried out by researchers at the US-based Sapien Labs think tank, found that mental wellbeing in 2023 had still not recovered to the pre-pandemic levels.
The study focused on mood and outlook, social self, drive and motivation, adaptability and resilience, cognition, and mind-body connection.
Armed with responses from more than 500,000 people across 71 countries, experts said the low scores for richer countries were explained by early-age smartphone use, eating ultra-processed food (UPFs) and unravelling of friendships and family ties – in other words, loneliness.
The UK’s wellbeing crisis
The highest proportion of people who said they were not doing well lived in Britain, Brazil and South Africa, with 35% of respondents in the UK saying they were distressed or struggling.
Wellbeing for over-65s has remained steady, but not for any other age group.
Alarmingly, young people seem to be the hardest hit across eight English-speaking countries, with the mental wellbeing of those aged 18-24 showing the least improvement since 2020.
In the UK, the figures signal a difficult time for young adults and poorer families in particular, who have been faced with two economic recessions in just four years, a grating cost-of-living crisis, and a property market marred by rocketing rents and house prices.
Waves of political chaos in Westminster due to changing Prime Ministers and scandals like Partygate have not helped to improve trust.
Meanwhile, eating ultra-processed foods was found to result in significantly poorer mental wellbeing across all ages, with around 60-70% of food consumed in the UK and the US categorised as such.
More than half of those who eat ultra-processed food daily said they are distressed and struggling with their mental wellbeing, compared to just 18% people who rarely or never do so, the study found.
In the eight English-speaking countries tracked since 2019, including the UK, the average MHQ score fell by 8% between 2019 and 2020.
In contrast, only 26% of people in Tajikistan, Bangladesh and Syria said they were distressed or struggling.
Yemen, where around 21.6 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, scored 59 for mental wellbeing – better than the UK, Ireland and Australia.
Less wealthy countries in Africa and Latin America scored the highest for wellbeing, with Dominican Republic taking the first spot followed closely by Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
The number of people who said they were distressed or struggling grew significantly from pre-pandemic to 2023, and has shown hardly any change for all countries.
Scientists conducting the study said: ‘Overall, the insights in this report paint a worrying picture of our post-pandemic prospects and we urgently need to better understand the drivers of our collective mental wellbeing such that we can align our ambitions and goals with the genuine prosperity of human beings.’
Measuring mental wellbeing
Mental wellbeing was defined as the ability of an individual to handle the normal stresses and adversities of life and contribute productively to society.
The anonymous online survey MHQ assessed the cognitive and emotional capabilities to give an overall mental wellbeing score.
A negative score suggested the person was distressed or struggling, between zero and 50 meant they were enduring, 50-100 managing, while at 100-200 they were succeeding or thriving.
UK, Ireland and Australia scored low for motivation and drive, while Bolivia, India, Pakistan and Kazakhstan had higher scores compared to similarly ranked countries.
The assessment faced reporting bias because the survey was only open to those with internet access in their country, meaning people surveyed in a less developed country were likely to be more well-off and educated, making their circumstances more similar to typical people in developed countries, Sapien Labs Founder and chief scientist Dr Tara Thiagarajan told DailyMail.com.
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