What makes people healthy and strong

What Makes People Strong?

What Are the Traits That Make People Strong?

1. Resiliency: Resiliency is the ability to adapt to life’s changes and crises. We generally feel safest when we have a sense of control or predictability; but when we find ourselves upside down and not in control, having the capacity to be resilient may be critical in weathering turmoil, and it may be the key to a healthy and productive life. Becoming more resilient means we must be able to be healthy, have energy and cultivate positive feelings during the hardest and darkest of times. When we can improve our problem-solving skills and cultivate the ability to see setbacks as opportunities, we can learn to successfully bounce back from stress, crises, and trauma. We become resilient in order to overcome the many adversities we will face and so that we can bounce back from those problems with more determination and skills, which can lead to better problem solving in the future.

5. Acceptance: To accept our strengths, weaknesses and that situations that will not change, is both wise and strong. We all have weaknesses, and when we address them we develop the ability to be tenacious in our resolve to become stronger; and at the same moment, we give ourselves permission to be human.

For more by Linda Durnell, click here.

For more on emotional wellness, click here.

Tips for Building a Healthy Relationship

Want to feel loved and connected to your partner? These tips can help you build and keep a romantic relationship that’s healthy, happy, and satisfying.

Building a healthy relationship

All romantic relationships go through ups and downs and they all take work, commitment, and a willingness to adapt and change with your partner. But whether your relationship is just starting out or you’ve been together for years, there are steps you can take to build a healthy relationship. Even if you’ve experienced a lot of failed relationships in the past or have struggled before to rekindle the fires of romance in your current relationship, you can find ways to stay connected, find fulfillment, and enjoy lasting happiness.

What makes a healthy relationship?

Every relationship is unique, and people come together for many different reasons. Part of what defines a healthy relationship is sharing a common goal for exactly what you want the relationship to be and where you want it to go. And that’s something you’ll only know by talking deeply and honestly with your partner.

However, there are also some characteristics that most healthy relationships have in common. Knowing these basic principles can help keep your relationship meaningful, fulfilling and exciting whatever goals you’re working towards or challenges you’re facing together.

You maintain a meaningful emotional connection with each other. You each make the other feel loved and emotionally fulfilled. There’s a difference between being loved and feeling loved. When you feel loved, it makes you feel accepted and valued by your partner, like someone truly gets you. Some relationships get stuck in peaceful coexistence, but without the partners truly relating to each other emotionally. While the union may seem stable on the surface, a lack of ongoing involvement and emotional connection serves only to add distance between two people.

You’re not afraid of (respectful) disagreement. Some couples talk things out quietly, while others may raise their voices and passionately disagree. The key in a strong relationship, though, is not to be fearful of conflict. You need to feel safe to express things that bother you without fear of retaliation, and be able to resolve conflict without humiliation, degradation, or insisting on being right.

You keep outside relationships and interests alive.Despite the claims of romantic fiction or movies, no one person can meet all of your needs. In fact, expecting too much from your partner can put unhealthy pressure on a relationship. To stimulate and enrich your romantic relationship, it’s important to sustain your own identity outside of the relationship, preserve connections with family and friends, and maintain your hobbies and interests.

You communicate openly and honestly. Good communication is a key part of any relationship. When both people know what they want from the relationship and feel comfortable expressing their needs, fears, and desires, it can increase trust and strengthen the bond between you.

Affordable Online Therapy

Nearly 3 Million people have turned to BetterHelp for professional online therapy. Take the quiz and get matched with a therapist that fits your needs.

HelpGuide is reader supported. We may receive a commission if you sign up for BetterHelp through the provided link. Learn more.

Need urgent help? Click here.

Falling in love vs. staying in love

For most people, falling in love usually seems to just happen. It’s staying in love—or preserving that “falling in love” experience—that requires commitment and work. Given its rewards, though, it’s well worth the effort. A healthy, secure romantic relationship can serve as an ongoing source of support and happiness in your life, through good times and bad, strengthening all aspects of your wellbeing. By taking steps now to preserve or rekindle your falling in love experience, you can build a meaningful relationship that lasts—even for a lifetime.

Many couples focus on their relationship only when there are specific, unavoidable problems to overcome. Once the problems have been resolved they often switch their attention back to their careers, kids, or other interests. However, romantic relationships require ongoing attention and commitment for love to flourish. As long as the health of a romantic relationship remains important to you, it is going to require your attention and effort. And identifying and fixing a small problem in your relationship now can often help prevent it from growing into a much larger one down road.

The following tips can help you to preserve that falling in love experience and keep your romantic relationship healthy.

Tip 1: Spend quality time face to face

You fall in love looking at and listening to each other. If you continue to look and listen in the same attentive ways, you can sustain the falling in love experience over the long term. You probably have fond memories of when you were first dating your loved one. Everything seemed new and exciting, and you likely spent hours just chatting together or coming up with new, exciting things to try. However, as time goes by, the demands of work, family, other obligations, and the need we all have for time to ourselves can make it harder to find time together.

Many couples find that the face-to-face contact of their early dating days is gradually replaced by hurried texts, emails, and instant messages. While digital communication is great for some purposes, it doesn’t positively impact your brain and nervous system in the same way as face-to-face communication. Sending a text or a voice message to your partner saying “I love you” is great, but if you rarely look at them or have the time to sit down together, they’ll still feel you don’t understand or appreciate them. And you’ll become more distanced or disconnected as a couple. The emotional cues you both need to feel loved can only be conveyed in person, so no matter how busy life gets, it’s important to carve out time to spend together.

Commit to spending some quality time together on a regular basis. No matter how busy you are, take a few minutes each day to put aside your electronic devices, stop thinking about other things, and really focus on and connect with your partner.

Find something that you enjoy doing together, whether it is a shared hobby, dance class, daily walk, or sitting over a cup of coffee in the morning.

Try something new together. Doing new things together can be a fun way to connect and keep things interesting. It can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or going on a day trip to a place you’ve never been before.

Focus on having fun together. Couples are often more fun and playful in the early stages of a relationship. However, this playful attitude can sometimes be forgotten as life challenges start getting in the way or old resentments start building up. Keeping a sense of humor can actually help you get through tough times, reduce stress and work through issues more easily. Think about playful ways to surprise your partner, like bringing flowers home or unexpectedly booking a table at their favorite restaurant. Playing with pets or small children can also help you reconnect with your playful side.

Do things together that benefit others

One the most powerful ways of staying close and connected is to jointly focus on something you and your partner value outside of the relationship. Volunteering for a cause, project, or community work that has meaning for both of you can keep a relationship fresh and interesting. It can also expose you both to new people and ideas, offer the chance to tackle new challenges together, and provide fresh ways of interacting with each other.

As well as helping to relieve stress, anxiety, and depression, doing things to benefit others delivers immense pleasure. Human beings are hard-wired to help others. The more you help, the happier you’ll feel——as individuals and as a couple.

Tip 2: Stay connected through communication

Good communication is a fundamental part of a healthy relationship. When you experience a positive emotional connection with your partner, you feel safe and happy. When people stop communicating well, they stop relating well, and times of change or stress can really bring out the disconnect. It may sound simplistic, but as long as you are communicating, you can usually work through whatever problems you’re facing.

Tell your partner what you need, don’t make them guess.

It’s not always easy to talk about what you need. For one, many of us don’t spend enough time thinking about what’s really important to us in a relationship. And even if you do know what you need, talking about it can make you feel vulnerable, embarrassed, or even ashamed. But look at it from your partner’s point of view. Providing comfort and understanding to someone you love is a pleasure, not a burden.

If you’ve known each other for a while, you may assume that your partner has a pretty good idea of what you are thinking and what you need. However, your partner is not a mind-reader. While your partner may have some idea, it is much healthier to express your needs directly to avoid any confusion.

Your partner may sense something, but it might not be what you need. What’s more, people change, and what you needed and wanted five years ago, for example, may be very different now. So instead of letting resentment, misunderstanding, or anger grow when your partner continually gets it wrong, get in the habit of telling them exactly what you need.

Take note of your partner’s nonverbal cues

So much of our communication is transmitted by what we don’t say. Nonverbal cues, which include eye contact, tone of voice, posture, and gestures such as leaning forward, crossing your arms, or touching someone’s hand, communicate much more than words.

When you can pick up on your partner’s nonverbal cues or “body language,” you’ll be able to tell how they really feel and be able to respond accordingly. For a relationship to work well, each person has to understand their own and their partner’s nonverbal cues. Your partner’s responses may be different from yours. For example, one person might find a hug after a stressful day a loving mode of communication—while another might just want to take a walk together or sit and chat.

It’s also important to make sure that what you say matches your body language. If you say “I’m fine,” but you clench your teeth and look away, then your body is clearly signaling you are anything but “fine.”

When you experience positive emotional cues from your partner, you feel loved and happy, and when you send positive emotional cues, your partner feels the same. When you stop taking an interest in your own or your partner’s emotions, you’ll damage the connection between you and your ability to communicate will suffer, especially during stressful times.

Be a good listener

While a great deal of emphasis in our society is put on talking, if you can learn to listen in a way that makes another person feel valued and understood, you can build a deeper, stronger connection between you.

There’s a big difference between listening in this way and simply hearing. When you really listen—when you’re engaged with what’s being said—you’ll hear the subtle intonations in your partner’s voice that tells you how they’re really feeling and the emotions they’re trying to communicate. Being a good listener doesn’t mean you have to agree with your partner or change your mind. But it will help you find common points of view that can help you to resolve conflict.

Manage stress

When you’re stressed or emotionally overwhelmed, you’re more likely to misread your romantic partner, send confusing or off-putting nonverbal signals, or lapse into unhealthy knee-jerk patterns of behavior. How often have you been stressed and flown off the handle at your loved one and said or done something you later regretted?

If you can learn to quickly manage stress and return to a calm state, you’ll not only avoid such regrets, but you’ll also help to avoid conflict and misunderstandings——and even help to calm your partner when tempers build.

Tip 3: Keep physical intimacy alive

Touch is a fundamental part of human existence. Studies on infants have shown the importance of regular, affectionate contact for brain development. And the benefits don’t end in childhood. Affectionate contact boosts the body’s levels of oxytocin, a hormone that influences bonding and attachment.

Of course, it’s important to be sensitive to what your partner likes. Unwanted touching or inappropriate overtures can make the other person tense up and retreat—exactly what you don’t want. As with so many other aspects of a healthy relationship, this can come down to how well you communicate your needs and intentions with your partner.

Even if you have pressing workloads or young children to worry about, you can help to keep physical intimacy alive by carving out some regular couple time, whether that’s in the form of a date night or simply an hour at the end of the day when you can sit and talk or hold hands.

Tip 4: Learn to give and take in your relationship

If you expect to get what you want 100% of the time in a relationship, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Healthy relationships are built on compromise. However, it takes work on each person’s part to make sure that there is a reasonable exchange.

Recognize what’s important to your partner

Knowing what is truly important to your partner can go a long way towards building goodwill and an atmosphere of compromise. On the flip side, it’s also important for your partner to recognize your wants and for you to state them clearly. Constantly giving to others at the expense of your own needs will only build resentment and anger.

Don’t make “winning” your goal

If you approach your partner with the attitude that things have to be your way or else, it will be difficult to reach a compromise. Sometimes this attitude comes from not having your needs met while younger, or it could be years of accumulated resentment in the relationship reaching a boiling point. It’s alright to have strong convictions about something, but your partner deserves to be heard as well. Be respectful of the other person and their viewpoint.

Learn how to respectfully resolve conflict

Conflict is inevitable in any relationship, but to keep a relationship strong, both people need to feel they’ve been heard. The goal is not to win but to maintain and strengthen the relationship.

Make sure you are fighting fair. Keep the focus on the issue at hand and respect the other person. Don’t start arguments over things that cannot be changed.

Don’t attack someone directly but use “I” statements to communicate how you feel. For example, instead of saying, “You make me feel bad” try “I feel bad when you do that”.

Don’t drag old arguments into the mix. Rather than looking to past conflicts or grudges and assigning blame, focus on what you can do in the here-and-now to solve the problem.

Be willing to forgive. Resolving conflict is impossible if you’re unwilling or unable to forgive others.

If tempers flare, take a break. Take a few minutes to relieve stress and calm down before you say or do something you’ll regret. Always remember that you’re arguing with the person you love.

Know when to let something go. If you can’t come to an agreement, agree to disagree. It takes two people to keep an argument going. If a conflict is going nowhere, you can choose to disengage and move on.

Tip 5: Be prepared for ups and downs

It’s important to recognize that there are ups and downs in every relationship. You won’t always be on the same page. Sometimes one partner may be struggling with an issue that stresses them, such as the death of a close family member. Other events, like job loss or severe health problems, can affect both partners and make it difficult to relate to each other. You might have different ideas of managing finances or raising children.

Different people cope with stress differently, and misunderstandings can rapidly turn to frustration and anger.

Don’t take out your problems on your partner. Life stresses can make us short tempered. If you are coping with a lot of stress, it might seem easier to vent with your partner, and even feel safer to snap at them. Fighting like this might initially feel like a release, but it slowly poisons your relationship. Find other healthier ways to manage your stress, anger, and frustration.

Trying to force a solution can cause even more problems. Every person works through problems and issues in their own way. Remember that you’re a team. Continuing to move forward together can get you through the rough spots.

Look back to the early stages of your relationship. Share the moments that brought the two of you together, examine the point at which you began to drift apart, and resolve how you can work together to rekindle that falling in love experience.

Be open to change. Change is inevitable in life, and it will happen whether you go with it or fight it. Flexibility is essential to adapt to the change that is always taking place in any relationship, and it allows you to grow together through both the good times and the bad.

If you need outside help for your relationship, reach out together. Sometimes problems in a relationship can seem too complex or overwhelming for you to handle as a couple. Couples therapy or talking together with a trusted friend or religious figure can help.

Authors: Lawrence Robinson, Melinda Smith, M.A., and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D.

Last updated: January 2021

Get more help

Am I in a Healthy Relationship? – Article aimed at teens to determine if your relationship is as healthy as it should be. (TeensHealth)

Help with Relationships – Articles addressing common relationship problems, such as arguments and conflict, communication, and infidelity. (Relate UK)

They say, «Health is above wealth.» One of the first duties we owe to ourselves is to keep our bodies in perfect health. If your body suffers from any disorder, our mind suffers with it, and we are unable to make much progress in knowledge, and we are unfit to perform those duties, which are required of us in social life.

There are certain laws of health which deserve particular attention and they are so simple that even a child can learn them. A certain amount of exercise is necessary to keep the body in perfect condition. All the powers (mental and bodily) we possess are strengthened by use and weakened by disuse. Moderation in eating and drinking, reasonable hours of labour and study, enough sleeping time (not less than 7-8 hours a day), regularity in exercise, recreation and rest, cleanliness lay the foundations for health and long healthy happy life.

Thousands of people consider sports to be very helpful in gaining good health. That’s why every country pays much attention to developing sports. It is sport that helps to bring up physically strong, strong-willed, courageous and energetic people.

In the last ten years recreational sport has become extremely popular, and, according to doctors is absolutely essential for a long and healthy life.

The reasons of this enormous interest in sport of all kinds are varied. When you ask people why they spend so much time, effort, and sometimes money, they will talk about the physical benefits (feeling fit, increasing stamina, sleeping better, the chance of living a more active life), psychological benefits (self-discipline and respect, a sense of personal achievement, relaxation, getting rid of aggression), and the social advantages (meeting people with similar interests, the team spirit). However, the social aspect seems to be more important for men than for women. Very often, enjoying a drink with friends after the match is as important for the former as a physical activity itself. The latter generally see sport as a way of keeping fit rather than anything else.

Of course, some people don’t consider sport to be a hobby; it is an everyday work for them. Much is spoken now about problems in professional sport. There is a lot drug taking in sport. There is too much pressure on young sports people. Mountaineering and air sports such as hang-gliding, each kill at least 16 people every year. In one Sports Council study of 28,000 people, football was found responsible for more than a quarter of 2,000 injuries seen every year. But still many people are involved in professional sport and millions of people can not live without it. They prefer watching sporting events rather than taking part in them. They are so-called sport-fans. They pack stadiums during sport matches and competitions, they sit glued to the TV, and they are ready to give every moral support to their favourite sportsmen or teams.

In the meantime thousands of ordinary people devote their spare time to going in for sports. They play indoor and outdoor games: volleyball, basketball, table tennis, hockey, lawn tennis. The number of participants and spectators show that the most popular games are basketball, hockey and, of course, football. A lot of people go in for track-and-field athletics, cycling, boxing, wrestling, gymnastics and so on.

Hockey, figure skating, skiing and skating are among the most popular winter sports. In summer swimming is enjoyed by millions of people. There are also many indoor swimming pools, which makes swimming possible all the year round. Cycling is a useful exercise, too, because it takes you out into the fresh air and gives much work to all the muscles. So if you arrange your day correctly you can find an opportunity for sports.

Physical training is an essential part of young people’s development. All pupils and students have regular training at PT lessons. These classes are enjoyed by everybody as they give a lot of energy, develop muscles, make pupils strong, quick and healthy. From time to time different kinds of competitions are organized at school or between schools. The most popular sports at school are basketball, football and volleyball. Besides, pupils and students attend a lot of sports clubs and sports sections after classes, where they take up their favourite kind of sport.

Indeed, sport is a part of everyday life of many generations all other the world. So if you think that physical fitness and health are important you are to go in for sports.

Презентация на тему: Health

МБОУ СОШ№6 с.Миндяк МР Учалинский район РБ Health 5 класс УМК “Happy English.ru” Выполнил учитель первой категории Гусева Юлия Николаевна 2013

If you are ready for the lesson let’s

Цели урока: познакомимся с лексикой по теме «Здоровье»; узнаем, какие продукты богаты витаминами; выясним, какими видами спорта вы занимаетесь; уточним, что необходимо делать, чтобы быть здоровыми.

Health is better than wealth

Health is better than wealth – Здоровье дороже богатства

New words Health – здоровье To be (stay) healthy (unhealthy) – быть здоровым (нездоровым) Healthy way of life – здоровый образ жизни Wealth – богатство Vitamins – витамины Rye-bread – чёрный хлеб Go in for sport – заниматься спортом Jogging – бег

To stay healthy you should Get up at 12 a.m. Eat healthy food Eat fast food Do morning exercises Stay at home all day long Go in for sports Be lazy Go on foot Go by car

Health Food Sports

Food and drinks

Food and drinks

Go in for sport Jogging Swimming

Go in for sport Skiing Skating

Go in for sport Playing football Playing volleyball Playing basketball Playing tennis

Sports in our life Sport helps people to stay in good health. You can do physical exercises or play games at sport clubs, you can swim in swimming pools, play games on playgrounds or jog in the park. I think that every season is good for sports. In summer, late spring and early autumn you can play outdoor games. You can ski in winter. You can play indoor games all year round. Sport makes people healthy and strong, brave and cheerful. Sports helps people make good friends. New words: Late – поздний Early – ранний Outdoor – на свежем воздухе Indoor – в помещении Make – делать Make friends – заводить друзей Brave – смелый Cheerful – бодрый

The Life Project: what makes some people happy, healthy and successful – and others not?

Changing times … London, 1950. Photograph: Haywood Magee/Getty Images

Changing times … London, 1950. Photograph: Haywood Magee/Getty Images

I n March 1946, scientists recorded the birth of almost every British baby born in one, cold week. They have been following thousands of them ever since, in what has become the longest running major study of human development in the world. These people – who turn 70 over the next two weeks − are some of the best studied people on the planet. And the analysis of them was so successful that researchers repeated the exercise, starting to follow thousands of babies born in 1958, 1970, the early 1990s and at the turn of the millennium. Altogether, more than 70,000 people across five generations have been enrolled in these “birth cohort” studies. No other country in the world is tracking generations of people in quite this way: the studies have become the envy of scientists around the world, a jewel in the crown of British science, and yet, beyond the circle of dedicated researchers who run them, remarkably few people know that they even exist.

I have spent the last five years researching these studies, and carried out well over 150 interviews with scientists, science administrators and cohort members along the way. (The identity of people in the studies is confidential, but I was able to talk to a few.) I discovered that this is a gloriously British endeavour − run by a cast of eccentric English men and women, often on a wing and a prayer. I came to believe that remarkable things happen when scientists do something as simple as watch people live their lives, and try to work out why we follow different paths.

The birth cohort studies have amassed mountains of information – including rooms stuffed with paper questionnaires, terabytes of computer data, freezers full of DNA, and boxes packed with fingernails, baby teeth and slices of umbilical cords, all carefully preserved. There is even a secure storage barn in Bristol containing around 9,000 placentas, pickled in plastic buckets. Together, these records chart the lives of ordinary British people in painstaking detail as they have lived through the tumultuous decades since the war. The findings from them have been both prolific and far-reaching, generating more than 6,000 academic papers and books. They have fed into policies regarding pregnancy, birth, schooling, social mobility, adult education and more, and have shaped scientists’ understanding of issues ranging through foetal development, chronic disease, ageing and death. They have touched the lives of almost every person in Britain today.

Yet often, the observations that scientists have made through these studies have not made for comfortable reading: they have revealed the persistent inequalities in society, and how the obesity epidemic has hit us hard. As one scientist told me, the birth cohorts hold a mirror up to Britain, and sometimes we don’t like what we see.

1940s: birth

The studies revealed the dismal conditions in which working-class women were giving birth. Photograph: Alamy

The results, when they emerged, shocked the nation by revealing the dismal conditions in which working-class women were giving birth: the babies in the lowest class were 70% more likely to be born dead than those in the most prosperous, and working-class mothers received worse medical care – for the obvious reason that they couldn’t afford it. But the results made a splash, appearing just in time to be integrated into plans for the NHS: when it launched, in 1948, the medical care associated with pregnancy and birth became free, and around that time more generous maternity allowances were introduced. The report “was a blueprint for the maternity service we’ve had ever since”, one obstetrician later said. So the survey helped to create the lasting belief that pregnant women deserved support by the state, which over time has grown into the maternity leave and benefits that families receive today.

1960s: school

Schoolboys doing metalwork, early 1960s. Photograph: Jane Bown

The scientists then focused on the next big challenge that life throws at us: school. The first cohort study offered a powerful way to test the success of the 1944 Education Act, which introduced a tripartite system of schools: grammar for the brightest, followed by secondary modern and technical schools. Students were streamed into grammars based on their performance in the 11-plus exam, the idea being that the cleverest children would pass the exam, regardless of background and social class. But did they? Had class ceased to matter; were brains all it took to get ahead?

Unfortunately, no. The study revealed that bright children from the working classes were far less likely to do well at school and pass the 11-plus than equally bright middle- and upper-class children. The attrition of smart but poor children became known as the “waste of talent” and the outcry quickly turned the key book of results – The Home and the School – into a must-read educational reference for student teachers. Many remember it still. “It is hard to imagine a rival in fascination and importance,” read one review in the Guardian.

In 1965, the year after the book was published, the Labour government drove through a major expansion of comprehensive schools, designed to replace the selective school system with a one-size-fits-all approach. So the cohort study helped shape our education system – although the debate about whether selective or comprehensive education serves children better rages almost as fiercely now as it did nearly 50 years ago.

1970s: smoking

The studies turned around the thinking about smoking during pregnancy. Photograph: Bernhard Classen/Alamy

It is hard to believe that even in the early 1970s, smoking in pregnancy wasn’t given much thought: 40% of pregnant women smoked. Luckily, the birth cohort studies turned things around. Back at the start, just as the second birth survey was going to the printers, the founder of the study raced in and told the team to stop so that he could add a question about whether pregnant women had smoked. The delay would prove invaluable: the scientists gathered detailed information on women’s smoking habits, and counted up all the stillbirths and infant deaths.

Later, when they crunched the numbers, they showed convincingly that women who smoked during pregnancy tended to have babies of lower birth weight, and that this increased the rate of perinatal death – even when confounding factors such as social class were taken into account. When their meticulously argued paper appeared in the British Medical Journal in April 1972, many doctors and scientists were finally convinced. “No reasonable doubt now remains that smoking in pregnancy has adverse effects on the developing foetus,” stated an editorial in the BMJ at the time. The finding changed public health advice, helped establish the idea that smoking in pregnancy is dangerous and has been saving lives ever since.

1980s: obesity

In the 1980s scientists found that people started to become overweight, even though they were different ages. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

The power of cohort studies of people born at different times is that it allows generations to be compared – and that is how scientists were able to watch us all gaining weight.

Hardly any members of the first cohort – the postwar generation − were overweight as children because food was rationed, and they stayed a healthy weight through young adulthood too. But in the 1980s, as the cohort entered their 40s, the proportion of people who were overweight or obese began to rise and it has been going up ever since. Just last year, scientists compared the way that people in all five generations have gained weight during their lives. This study was gargantuan, including 273,843 measurements of body mass index on 56,632 cohort members. No one has previously been able to watch obesity as it crept up on consecutive generations, and it didn’t make a pretty sight.

The scientists found that obesity rose in the first three cohorts in the 1980s: they all started to become overweight at around the same time, even though they were different ages. Why? Researchers suspect the answer has to lie in our environment and lifestyle, which changed enormously in the 1980s, when incomes in the UK were climbing, eating out was more affordable and cars were the way to get around. People who were more susceptible to weight gain started to pile on the pounds when our lives underwent this radical change.

As for the later generations, the wave of obesity had already swept in by the time they were born: the data shows that they were more likely to be overweight or obese as children. Studies of the millennium-born children showed that 23% of children were either overweight or obese by the age of just three, and a similar percentage by the age of five. On the positive side, not everyone gains weight and there is now a focus on understanding what special combination of genes and lifestyles makes some people seemingly immune to all the pressures around us to pile on the pounds.

1990s: adult education

A string of tests in the 1990s revealed an uncomfortable truth about modern Britain: a large proportion of adults struggle with reading and maths. Photograph: DCPhoto/Alamy

In the early 1990s, scientists started putting some study members through a string of tests. On what page of the Yellow Pages are the plumbers listed? How much change will you have from £2 if you buy a 68p loaf of bread and two tins of soup for 45p each? What is the floor area of a room that is 21 x 14 feet? The answers to these somewhat arbitrary-sounding questions revealed another uncomfortable truth about modern Britain: a large proportion of adults struggle with reading and maths.

The studies showed that about one in five adults had a reading level lower than that expected of an 11-year-old child. When it came to numbers, things looked even worse: one in three adults had skills below those expected of an 11-year-old (they could not calculate the area of the room, even with a calculator) and a quarter had skills at or below the expected level of a seven- to nine-year-old (they could not work out the change from the £2 problem). A comparison of Britain’s basic skills with those in other countries in the OECD showed that Britain was loitering near the bottom of the league. This widespread lack of basic skills had gone largely unnoticed until the cohorts brought it to light.

The studies were a big driver behind a major adult education initiative introduced in the early 2000s, a raft of measures to boost adult literacy and numeracy, including free adult courses to those without the equivalent of a satisfactory grade at GCSE English or maths. Several million people eventually signed up, and follow-up suggested that they often emerged from the courses with higher motivation and self-esteem.

2000s: social mobility

In 2008 the Falinge estate in Rochdale was surveyed as the most deprived area in England for a fifth year in a row. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

One thing about cohort studies is that you know where they start, but you never know where they will end up. So when scientists recorded the births of thousands of babies in 1958, no one imagined their efforts would shape government policy on life chances 50 years down the line. But that is exactly what happened, when work carried out by economists in the 2000s suggested that social mobility had declined.

The aim of the work was to examine the income of parents, and then the income of their children, to find out if the same families were still at the bottom of the heap. The results came as a shock: it showed that the income of children born in 1970 was tied more tightly to the income of their parents than it was for those born in 1958. It had become harder for children born in 1970 to escape their background: poverty, it seems, had become a stickier glue. The finding inspired a major academic debate – some scientists question it still – and swept into politics too. The idea that social mobility is declining was very easy to digest and it landed at an opportune time, right in the middle of a growing debate about inequality. It helped drive today’s political focus on improving social mobility and equalling life chances.

But that is going to be tough: the cohorts show that inequality has dogged every generation. In every cohort, children born into disadvantage have tended to follow a more difficult trajectory: they are more likely to struggle at school and at getting jobs, and to suffer poor health, among other things. But the studies have also struck a note of optimism by showing that not everyone born in difficult circumstances ends up in them: there are routes to escape.

Evidence from these studies and elsewhere has pointed to the enormous value of parental interest and involvement in children, particularly in the first few years, and suggested that interested parents might compensate for (but not eliminate) the disadvantages concomitant with a difficult start. In 2006, a cohort report called Bucking the Trend examined what enabled disadvantaged children born in 1970 to succeed in education later in life. It concluded that parental engagement, particularly in the first few years of life, is more crucial than anything else. For example, children whose parents had read to them when they were five and showed an interest in their education at age 10 were significantly less likely to be in poverty at age 30.

2010s: getting old

‘The observations could guide the NHS as it prepares for the onslaught of age-associated disorders that is heading our way.’ Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

As the oldest of the members reach 70, the scientists have the unenviable task of tracking them to the grave. (The participants are unruffled by this. Most say that being in the study makes them feel special, and that it is their duty to see it through to the last. “It’s something you said you would do, and you do it,” said one stoically.)

For scientists, the interesting question is who will go first, and why. A few years ago, they published a simple but powerful analysis of the cohort’s decline. They counted up how many medical disorders each person had out of a list of 15, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, raised cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, psychiatric problems, cancers and respiratory disease. They found that a whopping 85% of the cohort had at least one of these conditions and that, on average, they had two disorders apiece – even though most of those people, when asked, said that they were in good health and a large number of the conditions had never been previously diagnosed. It was a sobering picture of ageing, en masse, and one with important implications for Britain as a whole. The cohort study is acting as a bellwether, an early indicator of the tsunami of illness that our rapidly ageing population is going to bring in its wake.

Another recent study showed that people in their 50s who struggled to grip strongly, stand up from a chair, and balance on one leg with their eyes closed had a higher mortality rate over the next 13 years than those who had done well. This suggests that quick and simple tests, carried out in middle age, might identify those people in the population who might benefit the most from intensive medical care or help to improve their fitness and health.

All of this means that the cohort studies are returning to their roots. At the start of its life, the first study shaped maternity services in the fledgling NHS; perhaps now its observations could guide the NHS as it prepares for the onslaught of age-associated disorders that is heading our way.

There is much more: the extraordinary British birth cohorts have explored everything from the impacts of pollution, to divorce, to the genes involved in disease – and a roster of dedicated scientists continues to drive them forward today. The cohort studies are still holding a mirror up to Britain – and showing us that we are older – and perhaps a little wiser too.