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Contrary to popular belief, it is not inevitably in Scandinavia that we live the longest in good health, but more in the countries on the shores of the Mediterranean. Danish women have a life expectancy in good physical and mental conditions of 54.6 years, compared to 70.3 years for Maltese women and 67.8 years for Italian women.
We know that life expectancy is not the same between a man and a woman. In France, according to INSEEthe former live 80 years on average compared to 85.7 years for the latter. But this is only an average because professional life does have an impact. According to the latest demographic report, the gap between managers and workers is five years for men and three years for women.
Sex, social category… These parameters are generally used to highlight differences in life expectancy, minus nationality. However, all Europeans are far from being in the same boat. This is the conclusion as interesting as it is surprising from the latest statistics published by Eurostat. The statistics office looked particularly at the number of years in good health. All countries combined, this life expectancy is 62.6 years, with a much narrower gap between the two sexes: 62.8 years for women and 62.4 years for men.
Above all, the nationalities who live the shortest time in good physical and mental conditions are not those we imagine. Among women, it is the Danes who enjoy the lowest number of years in good health, i.e. 54.6 years. At the opposite end of this scale, there are the Maltese women (70.3 years). Same observation among his gentlemen, even if the Latvians are the Europeans who live the shortest in good health, i.e. 53 years, followed by the Slovaks (56.6 years) and the Danes (57.1 years). However, we will highlight the gap in life expectancy between the two sexes in the kingdom of the Little Mermaid of Copenhagen, in favor of men.
Could the Mediterranean diet find here an illustration of its beneficial effects on health? Why not ask the question since among those who live the longest in good conditions, we find Italian women (67.8 years), Greeks (67.8 years) and Cypriots (66.3 years). For men, the conclusion is similar: 70.1 years for the Maltese, 67.1 years for the Italians, 66.2 years for the Greeks and 65.7 years for the Cypriots.
However, it is difficult to make a generalization because non-Mediterranean countries are also in the top 3 for longest life expectancy: Bulgaria (68.9 years) and Slovenia (68.5 years) among women and Sweden for men (67.5 years).
Slide: How to age well?