Millions feel anxious

We have never had it so good - yet we think it cannot get any worse. Millions of us are experiencing alltime-high levels of anxiety, despite being healthier, wealthier and safer than they were 50 years ago, new research has revealed.

Almost 4million adults say they feel anxious or depressed - 60 per cent more than ten years ago. Threequarters believe life today is a less happy affair than it used to be.

But many of their worries are based on 'myths of decline', says a new book. Fears about children's health, parenting, crime, terrorism, food - even the air we breathe - are all unfounded, claims Complicated Lives.

Four-fifths of 1,000 people polled by the Future Foundation felt guilty about time spent with their children but they actually spent an hour more with each child than their parents did in the mid-1970s.

According to the survey, children's health is improving, burglaries and violent crime are down, fat intake is half what it used to be and we eat twice as much fruit than in the 1950s.

Even the infamous English smog has disappeared. Our anxieties are blamed on gloom-mongers - politicians, campaigners, scientists and businessmen - who tout 'worst-case scenarios' for their own personal gain, said co-authors Michael Willmott and William Nelson.