'Men are biggest health care product users'

Women may be generally considered the biggest consumers of health care products but according to one expert men are the real fans of these items.

US TV star Ruby Wax made the claim while speaking out about the effects of a common cold on the different sexes and the way in which it alters their habits, both at work and at the beauty counter.

The outspoken star said that a cold drives men to the beauty counter in a bid to cope with the health and aesthetic effects of a common cold.

Research conducted for Lemsip recently found that 22 per cent of people are very sympathetic to a partner’s cold, while 44 per cent do the household chores when their partner is ill and 25 per cent take took charge of looking after the children.

Furthermore, 62 per cent would forfeit time with their friends to look after their partner and 21 per cent said they strongly disagreed with the statement ‘'When my partner is ill with a
cold or the flu, I am sympathetic but if I am honest it really only lasts five minutes'.

Ruby said: "Statistics show that 52 per cent of women only have five minutes of time to give men sympathy in their daily lives, because they are so busy.

"That's because we live in an age when women are the new hunters."

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Annual Absence Survey, 2008 the average level of employee absence has reduced slightly to eight days per employee per year from 8.4 days for the previous 12 months.

In terms of working time lost the level of absence has decreased to 3.5 per cent from 3.7 per cent over the same period and the average cost of absence has increased to £666 per employee per year, from the previous year’s figure of £659 per employee per year.

Ruby said that men and women may have different approaches to illness in regards to their jobs.

"Men stay off work more, I should imagine," she said, "Women just brave it out. Women now feel more responsible, and men now know how powerful women are, so they just go to bed with their tissues."

When coping with the aesthetic effects of their illnesses Ruby also notes there are fundamental differences in the behaviour of the sexes.

She concluded: "Men use more products, but women buy them."