Predicting Health Through Relationships - TGL

The quality of your relationships is a better predictor of your health than cholesterol

It’s the kind of sentence that makes you pause for a moment.
Not your cholesterol. Not whether you smoke. Not how much you exercise.

But the quality of your relationships turns out to be a stronger predictor of health and longevity than many of these well-known medical risk factors.

This is demonstrated by The Good Life, the longest-running study ever on happiness and health, conducted by Harvard. For more than 85 years, researchers have been following people through different stages of life. The conclusion is surprisingly simple—and at the same time thought-provoking: warmth, support, and connection are essential for a healthy life.

An open door—one we keep closing over and over again

When I reread this insight, I thought: Wow. And at the same time: How is it possible that we’re doing so little with this?

Social health feels like stating the obvious. It’s so self-evident that we keep brushing it aside. I’m guilty of that, too.

I grew up in an environment where taking care of your health was the norm. Healthy eating, exercise, a focus on development, and education. There was no chronic lack of resources. Looking back, I can say: that was a privileged position.

But being privileged does not automatically mean being protected.

It's no longer a given

What has struck me more and more in recent years—even with my own children—is how complicated it has become to stay physically and mentally healthy. Even with a stable foundation, life constantly requires attention, adjustment, and recovery.

That says something important. Apparently, there’s more to it than just individual lifestyle or personal resilience. Apparently, there’s something amiss in the way we’ve structured our society.

The Focus on the Individual

We have increasingly individualized well-being.

We focus on the body (nutrition, exercise, sleep). We focus on the mind (mental resilience, coping skills, self-management). And that’s important—but it’s not enough.

What is increasingly fading from view is our social foundation: the networks of people around us, the daily sense of closeness, the informal support, and the feeling of belonging.

And when we, as human beings, lose our connection with others, we ultimately lose our connection with ourselves as well.

Treat the symptoms, ignore the causes

What do we do when things go wrong? We treat obesity. We treat feelings of sadness. We treat learning difficulties. Later, we treat stress and burnout.

At the individual level, there’s often something meaningful that can be done. But one question that’s rarely considered from a structural perspective is:

• What does your social network look like?
• Who's there for you?
• Where do you feel supported, loved, and close to others?

As long as these questions are not an integral part of health care, education, and counseling, we will continue to focus primarily on treating the symptoms.

What if we did it differently?

Imagine if, when dealing with health issues, we automatically took a broader view.
Not just: “What’s wrong with you?” but also: “How are you connected to others?”

Not as a bonus, but as a foundation.

What would that mean for how we organize healthcare? For how schools operate? For how we approach prevention? Science has actually already given us the answer. The Good Life shows that social connectedness is a protective factor—just as real as blood pressure or cholesterol.

Making Social Health Visible

One of the reasons social health is so often overlooked is simple: we don't see it.

We can measure a blood value. We can calculate a BMI. But relationships? They often remain implicit.

That’s why I developed the “ MLM-Tool .” Not to replace medical care, but to highlight something that’s essential: the network of people around you. Who’s there to support you. Where there’s warmth. Where things are getting thin.

Not to judge, but to understand.

From Smoke-Free to Healthy Relationships

We are right to invest in a smoke-free society.
But perhaps it’s time to also fully commit to something else: a socially connected society.

Not as a vague ideal, but as a concrete health strategy. Because if we take an honest look at what science tells us, it’s not your cholesterol that ultimately determines how you age—but the extent to which you feel supported by others.

So the question is not whether social health is important.

The question is: what's stopping us from taking her seriously?

Partitions? Systems? Technology? Customization?

Or is it the discomfort of admitting that health is never just an individual responsibility?

Social health is not a side issue. It is the foundation.