If you are, then you might be suffering from an identity crisis - and that's probably the least of it. Coined by Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell and later personified by Rick Marin in Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor, the phrase no longer refers exclusively to bed-hopping lotharios, but increasingly to the health risks of being - oh, the shame! - a single man. Because, according to a study in the US, bachelors aged between 19 and 44 are 58% more likely to die before they reach 50 than their smugly married, co-habiting counterparts.

Beer-gut instinct clearly tells you that single twenty- and thirty-something males are always going to spend more time nursing pints than changing nappies. As Rob, a celibate friend, puts it: "If you're not married you're always going to prefer Coke to cocoa and curry to Corrie". Yet a doner-based diet turns out to be well down the average toxic bachelor's list of woes.

"Men are pretty useless when it comes to talking about their bodies," says Nigel Duncan of the Men's Health Forum, which is trying to persuade the government to carry out more male-orientated health campaigns. "If men live by themselves the problem is accentuated. They tend not to respond to a general health message - you have to put out one separately for them."

Mike Shallcross, associate editor of Men's Health magazine, agrees. "When things go wrong with a man's body, a woman is very important for getting him to go to the doctor." He points out that "men often treat their bodies like they drive a car - they thrash it about a bit, then do nothing until it breaks down. Women see health as something to be maintained rather than salvaged."

Shallcross also believes married men, particularly fathers, have more motivation to eke out their existence for as long as possible. "They might be worried about the welfare of their family, or perhaps they want to make sure they're around to take their 18-year-old son for his first drink."

There is also evidence that depression and suicide are less common among married couples, which pretty well seals it. Toxicity - however you define it - might have its attractions for some men. But the chances are a ticket to old age is not one of them.