Ah, the pastoral sublime of garden sheds — the Sunday afternoons spent whiled away pottering around are food for nostalgic recollections of our fathers and grandfathers. Though, this peace of mind might indeed lend itself to the longevity of its occupant. That is to say: having a shed might make you live longer.

Perhaps, but that is indeed what the headline read from UK new outlet, the Daily Mail. Reporting on a BMJ published article by professor of men’s health Alan White, the Daily Mail claimed that this publication propounded on the health benefits of shed ownership. However, this seems to have been an oversimplification of what the BMJ later put out a response stating that this conclusion was not well supported by the data. Also, according to White’s abstract, the article was based on five individual case studies alone.



Continuing on with the wrong end of the stick, the Guardian published an editorial in response to the Daily Mail piece stating that long suffering women are much more in need of a garden refuge than their male counterparts.

There is a real story here which these two news outlets have completely overlooked. First that, at least in Europe, the concept of ‘men’s health’ has been largely overlooked. Second, there are emerging public health initiatives in the first world that have identified this inequity and are attempting to correct it.

First, the European Commission published in 2011 its report called The State of Men’s Health in Europe. The report focuses on the statistical inequality present in premature morbidity rates between working men and women up to the age of 65. Indeed, their findings show that men die before their full life expectancy more than 200% more than women, and that this is cause primarily by men’s underutilization of healthcare services. In fact, most cases of death causing disease in men presents its self in the ER (as opposed to their PCP), indicating that preventative medicine is not being sought by men.

Second, there has been a grass-roots movement present in Australia where communities or individuals open their spare warehouse space to be used as ‘sheds’ for retirement age men who are otherwise shed-less themselves. In an effort to unite the growing number on these sheds the Australian Men’s Shed Association coalesced in 2007 to act as both governing body as well as resource center. Currently the group boasts about 45,000 members, and has partnered with separate Shed groups in New Zealand, the UK and Ireland. Though begun as an effort to help ease social isolation of pension age men, the AMSA realized it was also helping tackle issues such as substance abuse and depression and so began orienting its self as a public health initiative focused on all male specific health problems.