Health has improved in the last 50 years and people are more conscious of the need to stay fit. But obesity has doubled and asthma quadrupled. Those born in 1970 were twice as likely to be obese (12% of men and 11% of women) by their 30s than those born in 1946 (5% of men and 7% of women).

The proportion suffering asthma rose from 3% of men and women born in 1946 to 13% of men and 14% of women born in 1970. Other allergies are increasingly reported, but levels of bronchitis have fallen.

The link between poverty, low educational attainment, and poor health and bad diets, was strong in all three studies. The numbers of men smoking stayed about the same, although the percentage of women smoking dropped by nine percentage points between the 1946 and 1970 birth groups. Just under half of women unskilled workers born in 1970 smoked, but only one in 10 from the professional classes did. On the other hand, alcohol consumption among women increased to the point where there is very little difference between levels of drinking and social class. The more educated and well-paid women were, the more they were likely to drink, however. They were also more likely to take illegal drugs: 14% of professional women born in 1970 admitted using drugs compared to 9% of women in unskilled jobs.

Men in professional jobs were, by contrast, 13 percentage points less likely to take drugs than unskilled male workers, though 21% of them did. Those born in 1970 were much more likely to have taken drugs than those born even in 1958.

But the later age group was much more likely to take exercise and eat fresh fruit. Half of men born in 1946 did not eat fresh fruit at all in an average group even when they were 43.

Children are also bigger now than ever before, but at birth weigh much less.