Oscar Kightley: We need to talk about men’s health

Actor and director Oscar Kightley says becoming a dad made him more conscious of his health. Photo / Supplied

When he was younger, Oscar Kightley let traffic tickets pile up without paying them.

“I’d just ignore the envelopes until they built up. I had this magical thinking where, if I don’t open them, it won’t be real,” the playwright, actor, director and comedian says.

“But of course, it doesn’t go away … and it only gets bigger.”

Kightley, an official ambassador for this year’s Mens Health Week, sees just the same complacency among Kiwi blokes ignoring their health – be it mental or physical – until it’s too late.

“Traditionally, we’ve never taken it as seriously as we should. And the stats are pretty bad.”

On average, men die four years earlier than women and are far more susceptible to heart issues, diabetes and other preventable illnesses.

Between the ages of 50 and 75 years, the overall number of deaths for men is around a third higher than for women.

And they’re also more reluctant to seek medical advice – something Kightley, now 52, said he’d been guilty of himself.

“I never used to think about it. When my family doctor passed away, I never enrolled with another GP and I’d just go into medical clinics if something flared up, and I’d pay through the nose,” he said.

“But later in life, becoming a dad proved the catalyst that triggered my need to sort myself out.

“Even as we speak, though, I’m still struggling with the lifestyle changes that I need to take in order to have and maintain better health.

“So, I totally get that it’s hard – but it’s also so important.”

“Traditionally, we’ve never taken it as seriously as we should. And the stats are pretty bad,” Oskar Kightley says. Photo / Supplied

That message was all the more crucial for Pasifika people, whose population was the country’s youngest, with well less than 10 per cent in New Zealand aged over 65.

The population also happened to have the country’s highest rates of diabetes and the highest levels of obesity – both illnesses which could lead only to shortened lives.

“We need to talk about health and we probably don’t talk about it enough,” Kightley said.

“When the boys get together, it’s mostly about giving each other shit or talking about the Warriors, instead of something a bit more uncomfortable.”

Another wake-up call came with a good friend who survived a bout with prostate cancer – the most-commonly diagnosed cancer among men.

“I had lunch with him after he’d finished his treatment and he said, mate, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from going through all this, it’s that you’ve got to go to the doctor.”

Men’s Health Week director Tim Greene said a big focus of the campaign was to draw attention to what could be done to lower the number of men dying from preventable illnesses.

“They estimate that every three hours a Kiwi man dies of a preventable condition – most often relating to their heart, respiratory illnesses or diabetes,” Greene said.

As worrying as it was that one in four men weren’t living to see retirement, “it’s even scarier when you look at the situation for Māori men, where it’s closer to one-in-two”.

Kightley turned back to that traffic ticket analogy.

“Pay those bills. Don’t leave them in the letterbox thinking it’s going to get better.”

• More information on Men’s Health Week and how men can help themselves, visit the website.