THE headline said it all: “Feeling poor? Blame it on the Hello! factor.” Apparently the middle classes underestimate their prosperity because they spend so much time reading about the super-rich in celebrity magazines.

This assertion came from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It pointed out that the gap between the richest and poorest in Britain had closed faster than in any other of the OECD's 30 nations. For all that, we continue to think that we are badly off because we compare ourselves with the footballers and pop princesses in glossy mags.

No one is immune from envy. If you are a Rothschild, you can still feel yourself to be poor the minute you step on board a Russian oligarch's yacht, complete with 50ft ballroom and two swimming pools.

This importance of relative, as opposed to absolute, wealth is not only a subject of interest to dry-as-dust economists. It is also very important to health. There is extraordinarily rich and diverse scientific literature that shows that it isn't material success that makes you happy and well but where you stand in the pecking order.

One would think that the greater a person's income the more likely he or she was to enjoy good health and to live a long life. Although at a basic level this is true -- it's very hard to be healthy and in poverty - there have always been marked anomalies. For instance, a poor Bengali farmer has a greater life expectancy than someone born in Harlem, New York, despite the latter having what the Bengali would regard as untold material riches.

It appears that the discrepancy is caused by differences in status. It's a comparative rank that is more important to good health than absolute income. The greatest exponent of work in this field is the epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot, of University College London. His work tracking the health of more than 10,000 civil servants over several decades has showed that the lower their status, the higher their risk of cardiovascular disease.

The stress that they experience because of their lower status causes metabolic disturbances, such as stickier blood and higher blood pressure, which lead to higher rates of death from heart disease and stroke.

This phenomenon is also seen in the dramatic drop in life expectancy and the rise in cardiovascular disease in Russia and other former communist countries in Eastern Europe - as wealth has increased so have aspirations.

If your income has plummeted, your health will not suffer because of lack of food (in fact, it may be better as fine dining is reduced). It is the stress of debt and anxiety together with your newfound lack of status that will be at the root of poorer health. This was identified in the report on mental capital from the influential Foresight science futures think-tank this week.

Its five-point plan to happiness identified savouring the moment, reflecting on your experiences and appreciating what really matters as a way of restoring mental wellbeing.

So don't even attempt to keep up with the Joneses, and especially not the Joneskis. Treasure what you have - and stop buying Hello! immediately.

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