Mounting health risks for indulgent Gen Y: survey
GENERATION Y face greater health risks than older generations, as they average a mere 1.14 hours of physical activity each day and also smoke and drink more than older Thais, a survey has revealed.
Conducted by the Mahidol University’s Institute for Population and Social Research, the survey also shows Gen Y prefer to live in cities and on average start having sex at 15 and have five sexual partners as teenagers.
Gen Y crave for an independent life and do not want children, as they feel the world is too dangerous.
Gen Y refers to people born between 1982 and 2005.
“Gen Y Thais are different from Gen Y Westerners, who are apparently more health conscious,” Asst Prof Chalermpol Chamchan said yesterday. He was a member of the research team.
He said Gen Y Thais also spent much money on food, with 77 per cent of their spending on average being used to satisfy their culinary tastes.
They show less respect for rules compared to people of older generations.
People before Gen Y are Generation X – those born between 1961 and 1981 – and Baby Boomers – those born between 1943 and 1960.
“Gen X people grew up at a time when Western culture and urbanisation flooded Thailand, so they are more accepting of diversity when compared with Baby Boomers,” Chalermpol said.
He said Gen X married at an older age and more of them stayed single compared with Baby Boomers.
Chalermpol said Baby Boomers were the generation with the greatest respect for rules, but they were less accepting of diversity.
Gen Y couples married later than previous generations because of more years spent as a student, Assc Professor Churnrurtai Kanchanachitra said yesterday
“Gen Y seek freedom in their lives. We cannot prohibit them from having sex even while they are young, with many sexual partners.”
They have to graduate with higher education while the older generations mostly finished with primary or secondary education.
“The social context is also the reason. For example, youths in rural areas move to the city to study at co-ed schools where boys and girls study together,” she said.
“The important thing is we have to teach them life skills and proper understanding to prevent sexually communicable diseases and unwanted pregnancies,” she said.
Elders should change their attitudes to understand young people, or else it would be more difficult to make the projects to teach them a success, she said.
Gen Ys were more stressed out than baby boomers because of the rapidly changing society.
“The baby boomers grew up in a period of economic development with not much expectations.
“They’re happier because they tend to be more successful while stepping closer to retirement than while they were newly employed,” she said.
Gen Ys live all of their lives in a fast-changing society where they have to be up-to-date for everyday changes or risk becoming outdated.
They have to improve themselves all the time, practising skills to use new technologies, which causes them to become more stressed.
“The good part of Gen Y is self-development, enthusiasm and a variety of skills,” she said.
“We can motivate Gen Y to work willingly by giving them a little bit of freedom, such as cancelling the clocking in requirement,” she said.
Working types and study types should be more varied in accordance with the diversity of generations, she added.
Weerapan Supanchaimat, deputy director of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, said the foundation focused on applying different aspects that affected health habits of each generation.
“For economic aspects, the baby boomers are the group having the least guaranteed income for seniors.
“So the foundation has to coordinate with the Labour Ministry to provide jobs for seniors and persuade people to put their money in the National Savings Fund when they’re young.
“The foundation has also coordinated with Health Department and Labour Ministry to provide labour-aged people a healthcare service.”
