It is obvious really. Health, life style choices and social class are all tied up with life expectancy and retirement. TAEN’s commentary for the DWP’s consultation on raising state pension age to 66 led me to thinking about this last week. 

Only a third of workers contribute to any other kind of pension at all so the state pension is their mainstay. Nevertheless, for some, retirement can’t come soon enough. Others put off taking both retirement and the pension, benefiting from the 10 per cent a year enhancement that such delay earns.

The lower paid manual worker will feel the pinch more profoundly if state pension age goes up quickly to 66 and on then to 68; that much is for sure. What is sauce for the architect or doctor is not necessarily sauce for the labourer or cleaner however.

This is the message of Paul Kenny leader of the GMB union with a large manual worker membership. “The government knows that manual workers in the industrial regions of the UK do not enjoy anything like the same life expectancy as professionals or other classes or employees. To force someone who has done a lifetime of toil on building sites, farms or in factories to work until they are 66 is completely unacceptable,” he said.

Some countries in Europe do have different ages of entitlement to the state pension for workers in more physically demanding jobs. While this seems a reasonable idea we have never gone down that road and it doesn’t seem very likely in the UK.

Pensions Minister Steve Webb appeared to rule it out anyway, at the launch of the Government’s Reinvigorating Retirement campaign in June, when asked a question by Alison Morley of the Local Government Association. “We should concentrate on prevention of work incapacity,” was the gist of his approach.

Good health is of course about attitudes and choices, but it is also about affordability. Eating well costs more; and taking exercise doesn’t always come free. In Glasgow’s East End, where life expectancy is around 60 and falling, “…diet is about as poor as you can get,” according to Peter Marsh of the Social Issues Research Centre.

A Glasgow GP told Marsh, “A lot of people are on benefits, living from week to week, relying on convenience foods and eating out of the chippy. Give people jobs and the ability to be masters of their own destinies and they will make healthy decisions about their lives.” One hopes so.

So while homilies on stopping smoking, cutting down on drink and keeping one’s weight down is what all GPs are supposed to do, it is too simple to put health down to personal choice. There is no single magic solution but controlling the food industry more, banning smoking in public places and cars, and making it much harder for children to acquire the drink habit are all part of what is needed. Eating well and taking exercise would help us all enormously.

Obesity is reported to cost the economy £15.8 billion annually and this is projected to rise to £37.2 billion by 2025. At this point 12 per cent of NHS resources will be allocated towards tackling diseases where being overweight is a known risk factor.

So while I applaud the idea of individuals taking personal responsibility for their health and wel being, I also think we need to control the food industry much better. We need tougher regulation to stop them filling us up with the salt and trans-fats that are doing so much harm, contributing to obesity, stroke and heart conditions.

All this may seem a long way from pensions and retirement, but the argument for raising state pension age more quickly is that we are all living longer, which patently we are not. Moreover, healthy life expectancy is the real issue; and the question is whether we are all living longer and healthier in the same ratio. Again, we are not.

The professional classes win out every time over the manual worker. This is not just an income thing or even just down to the less healthy job roles of manual workers, but it is several things combined, including undoubtedly our food and eating habits. If society places us in situations where cheap unhealthy food options assail people at every turn, one can hardly be surprised if some succumb to a diet of big Macs and take away cholesterol.

Ultimately, of course, individuals pay their money and make their choices. In the end, they will be the winners or losers and it is no use blaming society, food manufacturers, the system or whatever. It really is down to us individually, even though the system can help or hinder better health.

So in the end, we do carry the individual burdens of our retirement choices in the lifestyle choices we make throughout life. But as Keynes said: “In the end we are all dead.” He should have added: “sooner or later”.