These 11 graphs show what health really looks like in Switzerland

On November 3, the Federal Statistical Office published the new figures for the seventh Swiss Health Survey 2022 at its media conference. About 21,930 people across Switzerland were asked about their health status and health behavior. These graphs give you an overview.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), whether a person’s health is good or not is strongly linked to one’s social position in society. In the following graph, education level was used as an indicator of social position. When self-assessing their health status, people without a compulsory school qualification are significantly less likely to say they are in “very good” health.

Usually pass around 85 percent of the Swiss population consider their health status to be “good” or “very good”. Only three percent described their health as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’. The older people are, the less likely they are to be in good health.

People aged 75 and over in particular say their health has deteriorated enormously since Covid. About 13 percent of all age groups felt this way.

The proportion of affected people with lasting health problems is 34 percent for men and 38 percent for women.

In 2022, the majority of the population experienced positive emotions much more often than negative emotions. More than 80 percent said they were mostly happy or calm and collected in the month before the survey.

Women in particular are more likely to report moderate or high psychological stress. About 21 percent were women who felt strongly psychologically stressed and 14 percent were men. In 2022, approximately 18 percent suffered from psychological problems. This is an increase of three percent compared to 2017. The increase among young women is striking: 9 percent of young women report serious psychological stress.

The difference between men and women is also clearly visible when it comes to physical complaints. Women in particular feel a general weakness. In addition, women more often have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. Men report fewer complaints in all areas.

The level of exercise among the Swiss population has remained stable compared to previous years. Of young people under the age of 25, more than four in five young adults exercise sufficiently in their free time and only five percent are inactive.
As a rule, men are slightly more active in their free time than women.

People who sit a lot are at greater health risk because sitting for long periods of time can lead to obesity, back pain and cardiovascular disease. It is striking that older people in particular spend less time sitting. On average, the population aged 15 years and older spent about five to six hours sitting in 2022. In addition, men (32%) sit more often than women (24%).

Men are more likely to be overweight and develop obesity than women. In total, approximately 43 percent of the Swiss population is overweight or obese. However, Switzerland is one of the countries with the lowest percentage of overweight people in the world.

Since 1992, alcohol consumption among the Swiss population has fallen by more than half. Alcohol consumption is particularly high in the older age group. Of those over 74, approximately 37 percent of men and 15 percent of women drank alcohol every day in 2022. In 2022, approximately four percent of the population tends to chronically consume risky alcohol.

About 24 percent of the population smoked tobacco in 2022. Men at 27 percent were slightly more likely than women at 21 percent. However, the proportion of smokers has fallen by six percent since 1992. Heavy smokers (more than 20 cigarettes per day) mainly include men, people without a tertiary diploma and people aged 45 and over.

How you eat can have a significant impact on your health. About 71 percent of Swiss watch their diet. This awareness is slightly less pronounced among men at 66 percent than among women at 76 percent.

Compared to previous years, slightly fewer vegetables were eaten in 2022. Only 16 percent eat vegetables at least five days a week. Women eat almost twice as many vegetables as men. In addition, people without post-compulsory education eat vegetables less often than people with a university education (19 percent versus 9 percent).

Meat consumption also fell. The share of people who eat meat more than three times a week has fallen by 12 percent between 1992 and 2022. Since 1992, the share of people who eat meat several times a day has more than halved. The share of people who do not eat meat has tripled.