Health bosses have raised the alarm about the prevalence of gambling after official figures found more than half of people aged 16 or older in England gambled at some point during 2018.
The results are contained in the Health Survey for England 2018, which also showed that millions of people are overweight, drink too much alcohol, eat badly or fail to do enough exercise.
The survey showed that 53% of people had gambled in 2018, which included buying a lottery ticket, with 56% of men reporting that they had gambled against 49% of women. While the figures have fallen in recent years, the chief executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens, issued a warning not to infer the problems that gambling present had gone away.
“These new stats are a stark reminder of how common gambling is in our society and how easy it is to become addicted, particularly with the aggressive push into online gambling,” said Stevens on Tuesday.
“The NHS never stands still as health needs change, which is why we’re rolling out new specialist services to tackle mental ill health linked to gambling addiction, as part of our long-term plan.
“But it is high time that all these firms who spend many millions on marketing and advertising step up to the plate and take their responsibilities seriously.”
The rates have been falling in recent years. In 2016, the Gambling Commission reported that 56% of adults aged 16 or older gambled, while 62% had done so the previous year. In 2012, the first year the issue was covered by the Health Survey for England, 68% of men and 61% of women participated in a gambling activity.
For this year’s study, 8,178 adults and 2,072 children (aged up to 15) were interviewed from households across England.
The survey found 10% of all men and 5% of women drink alcohol nearly every day. Older age groups are far more likely to drink regularly, with 16% of men and 11% of women drinking nearly every day in the 65 to 74 age group, compared with 4% of men and 2% of women in the 25-34 bracket.
Just 3% of all adults aged 16 to 24 drank on five or more days in the week before the survey, rising to 7% of those aged 25-34, 14% of those aged 45-54, 17% of those aged 55-64 and 21% of those aged 65-74.
When it comes to food, the study found just 28% of adults eat five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day, as do 18% of children. And 7% of men and women have diabetes that has been diagnosed by a doctor, up from 2% in 1994.
More than half of adults (56%) were found to be at increased, high or very high risk of chronic disease due to their waist circumference and body mass index (BMI). Some 26% of men and 29% of women were obese. Overall, 2% of men and 4% of women were morbidly obese.
