A WEIGHT management service in Oldham has taken to Facebook with some shocking statistics on men’s heath.

In a bid to raise awareness for Men’s Health Week from June 14-20, Your Health Oldham by ABL Health has published a catalogue of stark figures to “encourage” men to prioritise their health.

A Facebook post by Your Health Oldham, a service jointly funded by Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group and Oldham Council, reads: “Now you’ve probably heard that men ‘take more risk’ or ‘have more dangerous jobs’, and whilst this statistically may be true, there are a whole host of health reasons why men are dying earlier than women.

The post continued: “Men are 26 per cent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than women. Men suffer over 11,500 deaths from prostate cancer in the UK per year. Men are more likely to skip health checks or avoid the doctor. Men are 50 per cent more likely to die of heart disease than women. Men are more likely to die by suicide than women.

“We need to encourage men to prioritise their health more, both physically and emotionally”.

Men’s Health week aims to bring awareness to health issues that disproportionately affect men and focuses on getting men to become more aware of health problems they may have or could develop and gain the courage to do something about it.