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Why is depression and loneliness and big issues in Finland? - that's an important and complex question.
Recently, I relaunched my role as performance and business coach, including taking pro-bono assignments as a support person.
I'm a psychological scientist currently living in Finland. In 2018, I was invited to become a research-leader at the University of Helsingfors. The research was about the future for Finland's food production from a perspective of Entrepreneurial Thinking, and because the topic was rather complex, the report ended up to include several aspects: how the mind works (chapter 1-3), the climate (chapter 4), the origin of our species (chapter 5), the origin of agriculture (chapter 6), and nutrition (chapter 7) (Österberg, 2021 (In Swedish).
I also wrote a piece about food on my research blog (Österberg, 2019), and after that I was invited to the department of food and nutrition to open that years seminar series for experts on food and nutrition (Österberg, 2020).
That was followed by two popular science articles on food and health (Österberg, 2021, 2022 (both in Swedish)), and a summary about food (Österberg, 2023 (In Swedish).
Because of my role as an expert psychologist, I was assigned to be the department's team leader for mental health issues. The rationale for having that role was that the prevalence of mental health issues at the University of Helsingfors was a staggering ~20%.
Despite having a long experience as a performance and business coach, including digging into nutrition and workplace issues, and spending five years in a research network at Karolinska Institute (Österberg, 2015, 2016 a b, 2017 a b, 2018), the project at the University of Helsingfors opened my eyes about the connection between nutrition and health.
This was partly because the people who recruited me asked me to communicate with the public and organizations. Therefore I conducted more than 20 talks or presentations in Finland between 2018-2022. During those talks and meetings, a recurrent theme was mental health, or rather, the lack thereof. This became adamant in 2021, during the election to public office in Helsingfors, when I spoke to a number of politicians.
The paradox was that when local politicians talked about soaring mental illness, the then acting Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin stated the following:
“Finland is the world’s happiest nation – and I want to keep it that way” (Topping, 2021).
But in April of 2023, Finland's institute for health and welfare (THL) as well as the National pension institute (Fpa/KELA), warned that since 2010, Finnish people’s physical and mental health have deteriorated (HS, 2023). Seven month later, during a Finnish conference called Finnish-Swedish Children's Rights Days 2023 (Finlandssvenska Barnrättsdagarna 2023), the host said that Finland is the most depressed country in the EU. And soon after, I met people from the Red Cross who were asking for money to support loneliness, which is a serious matter as well a a marker for mental illness.
“Researchers now know that prolonged loneliness correlates with a range of health problems. Lonely people are at greater risk of stroke, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, and arthritis. They are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, eating disorders, alcoholism, and sleep deprivation” (Dickinson, 2023)
“The results suggest that lonely individuals may literally view the world in a different way, perhaps finding less value in life moments that non-lonely individuals would enjoy” (Pomeroy, 2023).It's worth mentioning that there are differences between males and females; whereas men are more ok with being alone, women in general have a need for a social life, such as friends and family (Dunbar, 2021; Pinker,2005).
There's another remark to be made. First, when you think about Finland's socio-culture, you might get it wrong.
Between 540-750 people living in the area of Uppsala and Vendel in Svitjod, which from 1384 is called Sweden, started to build long-ships. This period is therefore called the Vendel period. Rowers were used to propel these ships. Their voyages of discovery went east. Findings at Haga borg just south of Tavastehus, and in Salme on the Estonian island Ösel, show (1) remains of a settlement, (2) boat graves which contained traces of men from the higher estates, indicating that the journey was diplomatic in nature, much like a crusade. An important observation was that they used sails (Mägi, 2018; Watson, 2016; Wikipedia). Another king, Rurik (830 - 879), was recruited in 862 to rule Novgorod, which later became Russia. Rurik also founded Kiev. they sailed in fleets (Price, 2020). During this time period, people living i Åbo in today's Finland, took the initiative to be included in Svitjod.
This time period was the also breaking point from paganism and christianity. According to oral tradition, Svitjod's king Erik (1125- 1160) Jedvardsson followed the tradition of conducting a supposed crusade or diplomatic journey eastwards. The purpose was probably to baptize the pagans who lived in the inland. That's probably why Erik was joined by a bishop - Henry. Erik's crusade, which likely was a tradition that had been going on for several hundred years, was followed Birger Jarls crusade (1249-50 AD), which saw the land to the east of the Baltic sea become part of Svitjod.
In 1384, Sweden was mentioned for the first time, and included Väster- and Östergötland, basically Beowulf-country.
In 1523, Gustav Vasa (1996-1560) was elected king of Sweden. In 1550, he founded Helsingfors a trading hub in competition with Reval (Tallinn, Estonia). King Vasa also suppressed the renaissance which been spread from Florence in Tuscany (Italy didn't exist at that time) since 1420 AD. When Vasa son Erik XIV was crowned king in 1560, the door opened for renaissance.
Erik was deposed and succeeded by his brother Johan III in 1568. Johan was succeeded by his son Sigismund in 1592, who was also deposed. He was succeeded by Gustav Vasa's son Karl IX in 1599 (1604). Karl was succeeded by his son Gustav II Adolf in 1611, who fell in Lützen in 1632. Gustav Adolf's daughter Christina (1626-1689) was crowned a minor queen in 1632. Together with the governor of the Eastern part of the Swedish country - Per brahe - they founded the Royal academy in Åbo (1640).
During this time, the standard of living in the Swedish kingdom doubled.
This was followed by a science revolution and enlightenment in a three step process:
“Scientific Revolution were introduced into Sweden in three steps. First, Cartesian philosophy (with Copernican cosmology) was imported in the course of a prolonged academic row in the second half of the seventeenth century; second, institutions of the continental and British academy type were created in the first half of the eighteenth century, while at the same time Newtonianism and experimental physics made their entry; third, in the decades around the mid-eighteenth century, science reached maturity with Swedish scientists achieving international eminence in a number of fields – especially in natural history, mineralogy and chemistry. Carl Linnaeus (von Linne) and his colleagues made the eighteenth century a golden age for Swedish science (and a favourite topic for latter-day historians of science)” (Widmalm, 2012).
After more than 60 kings and queens, the Swedish kingdom became one of the most powerful military forces and affluent country on the planet.
In parallel to this development, tribes in the inland of the eastern part of the kingdom spoke various uralic languages that do no longer exits. A Swedish priest, Mikael Olofsson (1507 - 1557) from Pernåbyggd between today Borgå and Lovisa, set out to convert these pagans to Christianity. For that purpose he created a standardized form av the many uralic languages; one children's book, and to translations from the bible. He also documented their gods (1551). Olofsson then changed his name to Agrikola (Mörne, 1918).
In Åbo, a professor of philosophy, Henrik Gabriel Porthan (1739-1804), with a strong interest in Fennoplilia, myths and folk songs, probably used Olofssons/Agrikolas work as a foundation for his own claims.
In 1808, Russia invaded the Swedish fortress Sveaborg (1748- ). That became a door opener for Porthan's phennoplilia - the Fennoman movement (1810) started, with the purpose of suppressing the enlightenment thinking that made the Eastern part of the Swedish kingdom affluent, in favor of national romanticism:
“is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes such factors as language, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and customs of the nation in its primal sense of those who were born within its culture. It can be applied to ethnic nationalism as well as civic nationalism. Romantic nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the top down” (Wikipedia).
Fifty-five years later, Kremlin formally demanded that the Finn's, now a vassal state to Russia (on paper a grand duchy), to abandon their arch enemy's language, which also was the trading language around the Guld of Bothnia and the Baltic sea. But they didn't chose Russian as a replacement, but the language's which was spoken by tribe's in the inland, and which had been formalized by Olofsson/Agrikola - Uralic-Finnish. It was a slow process. In 1910, 50 % of the Finns still spoke Uralic-Finnish.
The resistance to this language change is documented in health studies. According to Finnish tradition, the Swedish speaking Finns are called “better people”, insinuating that their affluence comes at the cost of those who the language imposed by Kremlin. But there's another narrative.
During the 1940s, a Swedish biochemist called Haqvin Malmros (1895-1995) conducted an epidemiological study. Dr. Malmros gathered data from the northern USA, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. He concluded that saturated fat and cholesterol caused Arteriosclerosis, and eventually cardiovascular disease (Malmros, 1950). But looking at Malmros graph, it seems that Finnish people's consumption of total fat hat already decreased since before the start of World war II:
“An american epidemiologist, Dr Ancel Keys, noticed Malmros paper. The following paragraph, first presented in March 1954, is the key evidence in Keys’ early writings showing from where he first “borrowed” the diet-heart and lipid hypotheses:Keys is known for launching something called Seven countries study. Finland was one of the countries, and in Finland, most people know about the North Karelia Project. In 2022, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, bragged about the benefits of the North Karelia Project, including the following phrase:In view of the obvious importance of the serum cholesterol concentration, it is interesting that this is reduced in populations on short rations and that famine victims almost invariably have very low serum cholesterol concentrations. The fact that atherosclerotic heart disease diminished sharply in many countries on restricted rations during World War II (11-13) is undoubtedly of major significance … whenever a population is faced with a restricted food supply, the character of the diet tends to change even more than its total caloric content. The greatest and most invariable dietary change in famine, and under such conditions as those of World War II (WWII) in much of Europe, is the replacement of fats by carbohydrates (4, 12). (10, my emphasis)His reference to Haqvin Malmros’ 1950 article (11) is of the greatest historical importance. There, Malmros describes the intellectual foundation of what would become known for generations after as Keys’ diet-heart hypothesis. Malmros wrote:The consumption of milk and dairy products as well as other foodstuffs rich in cholesterol is very different even under peace conditions in various parts of the world. There should accordingly be less arteriosclerosis among the races that live mainly on a vegetable diet … . Following abundant supply of high cholesterol food there would seem reason to expect an early appearance of atherosclerosis … . If the cholesterol content of food has any significance for the origin and course of arteriosclerotic vascular diseases, the critical years associated with the war ought to be reflected in the mortality curves of certain countries while they should have no effect upon the curves for the countries in which the supply of foodstuffs has been normal. (139-140)” (Noakes, 2019).
“From the outset, the goal was to lower cholesterol and blood pressure through dietary changes, including a reduction in the use of butter and salt”.But after the reports about NKP which happened ~1972, something started to happen in Finland - dementia, including Alzheimer's, became more prevalent. Finland is currently the No 1 Alzheimer's country in the World. As a comparison: Swedish ranks No 10 (Österberg, 2022).
Why?
For some reason, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare forgot to talk about the cohort from Åbo.
Because Finland has two socio-cultures, the Swedish speaking which gave the country all the benefits mentioned above, and the Uralic-Finnish one, imposed by Russia ~1810, the researcher took samples from two places in Finland: typically Swedish speaking Åbo, and typically Uralic-Finnish speaking North Karelia.
And despite eating similar diets, the results between these regions was different. In Karelia, 995 out of 10 000 people died of cardiovascular disease. In Åbo 300 out of 10 000 died of cardiovascular disease (Teicholz, 2014).
During spring of 2023, researchers from Helsingfors city said that Swedish speaking Finns have better health and live longer. Researchers from Åbo Akademi made the same claim later that year.
Ergo. Sanna Marin had a point, but so did the host for Finlandssvenska Barnrättsdagarna 2023.
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More about my expertise:
Executive coaching for CEOs/managers and workshops to facilitate Organizational Performance, Learning, and Creativity for Problem Solving | Lectures: Nutrition for physical and mental health | Course/lecture: children's emotional and social adjustment and cognitive development | Language training - Swedish | Academy Competency | CV | Teaching skills and experience | Summary of research project | Instagram | Linkedin | YouTube-channel | TikTok | Twitter
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