Hidden money pressures could hurt your health
Financial stress that’s kept secret linked to higher mortality rates
Writer Neal Gabler broke the don’t-talk-about-money taboo this spring with an Atlantic article, “The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans.” Now he wants everyone to start talking. “The idea of not being successful financially in America is such a stigma,” says Gabler, who revealed in the article that he was among the millions of adults who didn’t have savings to cover a $400 emergency. “That’s the reason people don’t talk about it, because they take their failure personally.”
Yet financial stress is epidemic. Nearly three-quar- ters of U.S. adults admitted feeling stressed about money, and 22 per cent reported extreme stress in a 2015 study commissioned by the American Psychological Association.
Other studies have shown that financial stress can be lethal:
Money worries have been linked to higher mortality rates among cancer patients and those with heart disease.
A study for the Australian government found prolonged financial stress was a strong predictor of subsequent obesity. Obesity is associated with higher death rates. In fact, one study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that obese adults were 20 per cent more likely to die during the 14-year study period than adults with average weight.
Adding insult to injury, financial stress also seems to make people look older, according to a study published in Research on Aging.
Despite its pervasiveness, most people don’t disclose the financial pressures they face. In a study commissioned by Umpqua Bank, 77 per cent of respondents said they didn’t talk about their money stress, often because they were embarrassed, ashamed or thought no one would understand.
“Yet, of that 23 per cent of folks who did talk about it, 70 per cent of them felt better after doing so,” says Eve Callahan, Umpqua’s executive vicepresident of corporate communications. “They felt less stressed, they felt like they had more, a better abil- ity to make financial decisions and live their lives in a way that would be healthy for them.”
The survey prompted the bank to launch a podcast series, Open Account with SuChin Pak, to explore personal stories about money, including Gabler’s. The bank set up MadeToGrow.com, to offer resources for starting conversations.
Gabler, for one, is glad he opened up. He wrote that despite appearances of success, he had juggled creditors, had his bank account levied and been down to his last $5 while waiting for a paycheque to arrive.
“I broke my own taboo because I thought there are other people out there who are in a similar predicament and it would help them to know that they are not alone,” Gabler says.