Boys will be boys: not a fashionable idea any more. Now that the Y chromosome is considered a curse, and testosterone a tribulation, there are only two behavioural options for persons of the male persuasion.
Life cycle of a 21st-century male (A). Born. Dosed with Ritalin to kill off unhelpful biological urges to shout and use catapults on cat. Dazed, passive and bewildered, takes to watching excessive amounts of TV and spending long hours at computer in adolescence. Becomes morbidly obese. Then develops anorexia and body dysmorphic disorder; spends 18 hours a day in the gym in the vain hope of getting a sculpted six-pack. In later life will become obsessively interested in extreme health aids: use expensive Viagra and complete self-bankrupting process by buying throbbing crimson Porsche. But will not visit GP to get nagging chest pains checked out.
Life cycle of a 21st-century male (B). Born. Develops apathy and fails to take enough exercise to stave off a swelling belly. Becomes sports fan, though only to the extent that he watches football on TV with equally sagging friends. The only six-packs in sight are the beer cans. Refuses to climb stairs or walk to work. Subsists on heart-attack-on-a-plate fry-ups. But resolutely ignores wife’s demands to get nagging chest pains checked out by GP.
To a man, visiting the doctor is an inexcusable sign of weakness: the medical equivalent of asking for directions. It’s a suicidal form of squeamishness. The male allergy to the doctor’s surgery leaves them more prey than women to nine of the 10 commonest cancers. It’s not just that men smoke and drink more than women, and eat worse. The other part of the problem is that men ignore potential cancer symptoms for longer, thereby raising their risk of death. Anything to avoid sitting in the waiting room, leafing anxiously through Hello! magazine.
Not that fear of the GP is the only thing that makes men die faster than women. As Mark Henderson points out in Body & Soul’s special edition on men’s health, biology is on the side of female longevity. Testosterone raises your cholesterol and your chances of dying of heart disease; the female hormone oestrogen, by contrast, keeps your heart ticking for longer. Living fast and dying young is a perfectly good way of spreading a man’s genes.
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Still, men who want to be men should take more interest in their health. Not the wackier stuff (delete those unsolicited Viagra ads from your in-box) — just the odd bit of fruit, walk to the bus stop or medical MoT. When the remedy is this simple, it surely can’t be worse than the disease. Please ask for directions, just this once.