Social isolation can be harmful to health: UW professor

The start of the new year brings many resolutions for people; some focus on going to the gym more or trying to shed a few extra pounds. But another way to exercise that is often overlooked includes social fitness – which has shown to boost overall health or aid in recoveries from serious illness.

“There’s a mounting body of evidence that overwhelmingly shows that the best thing we can do for our health and wellbeing is to cultivate warm relationships of all kinds,” Troy Glover, professor and director of the Healthy Communities Research Network out of the University of Waterloo, said.

“If you are isolated and lonely, you are more likely to get sick, you are more likely to recover more poorly from that illness.”

Adding more people to your contact list or even saying hi casually to the grocery clerk can help build social infrastructure or create community connections. While on The Mike Farwell Show, Glover mentioned that cell phones can play a role in creating connections but it can also halt social interactions with strangers, which is an important layer of social fitness.

Social interactions, no matter how big or small, can play a positive part in overall health. Glover added people need to see and chat with others in the community to feel part of it.

Glover’s research is in line with a Statistics Canada survey, released in February 2025, showing more than 1 in 10 Canadians that are 15-years or older said they always or often felt lonely.

Those stats also show that women in Ontario tend to feel more isolated then men. The survey found 15.9 per cent of women always or often felt lonely and 40.4 per cent sometimes felt lonely. Men sat at 11.9 per cent for often feeling lonely in the province and 37.3 per cent reported sometimes feeling lonely.

While solitude can be comforting to some, it can also lead to excessive time spent on technology that dulls the signal of loneliness.

“Talk to strangers, talk to our neighbours, connect with your co-workers, build those relationships that are so important to our health and wellbeing,” Glover said.

Reaching out to people can feel daunting. Many people anticipate negative responses before they reach out, he said, but most of the time the connections made are positive.

“It helps us respond well to any sort of disruption in our life and that often means it translates into us being healthier, less likely to get sick,” he said.