Quote :

"Such reversals, even small ones, are unusual for wealthy nations, where people tend to live longer with each successive generation, as health care and public safety improve and the standard of living rises. In the U.S., life expectancy overall has been stagnant at 78.8 years since 2012, remaining below that of several European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan. The stagnation follows decades of steady gains in the U.S., from 69.7 years overall in 1960 to 76.8 years in 2000 and 78.7 years in 2010."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/life-expectancy-for-white-americans-declines-1461124861

Even white people are on the decline. Seems like a pretty bad sign for our society, hopefully it's just a blip.

4/20/2016 10:54:39 AM

How long do you think a human should live?

4/20/2016 11:01:11 AM

i don't think the issue is that it's too low, i think the issue is that its unusual to see it decline in a wealthy nation

4/20/2016 11:06:19 AM

and that we're above our peers.

I'd like to see a study of people who were not born here, especially those who spent, say, the first 18 years of their life elsewhere. That would help control if it is something unique to the external populations or a driving factor such as our health care or eating habits that change things.

To answer the question above regarding lifespan, I'd say 100 years for a person born today is reasonable given what we know about the human body.

4/20/2016 11:22:09 AM

I hate to be a generationist, but I am when it comes to hating on Baby Boomers.

Isn't that who is primarily responsible for this decline? Should we be surprised? Boomers have been on the fore front (well for the last 30ish years) of the short-sightedness of this country, lack of investment in the nation, lack of investment in the private sector, and apparently a lack of investment in their own health. There is nothing we can do but to wait for Boomer influence to recede and then start rebuilding (we are approaching this turning point now).

4/20/2016 12:36:07 PM

This is what happens when you have a broken healthcare system and a food industry that somehow makes a 730 calorie kale salad.

It's also what happens when your society is this schizophrenic about sex and drugs. We fairly worship both and condition people from a young age to think that they are awesome, while at the same time telling them they are bad and wrong and should not be done. This kind of mixed message has been leading to bad decisions since Eve ate the apple, or, if you prefer, since the Roman Empire went from embracing orgies and wine to getting all Jesus-y and then promptly collapsed. (Admittedly I can't draw a causal relationship there...yet)

Point is, our attitude towards drugs and sex encourages bad decisions with regards to both, which harms health. European and Canadian health systems and attitudes have been moving in a positive direction since WWII. Ours have stayed mostly stagnant. Of course, then Japan comes out of nowhere and queers all the numbers by having attitudes that strike the rest of us as bizarre. Chalk that up to a weird diet and a stubborn refusal to die (except when it becomes an unshaking resolve to kill oneself, which, in Japan, it famously does pretty often). And Japanese attitudes towards sex seem to have actually been successful at preventing it, which may have positive results for the health of individuals but which is eventually going to depopulate the islands.

4/20/2016 1:00:46 PM

^ i agree with everything youre saying.

How do we get over the fact that we can't even talk about eating healthier, pushing healthier foods in schools, asking restaurants to use healthier menus, without people losing their minds about "government telling them what to eat" and lobbyists getting pizza classified as a vegetable. I'm recalling the hate the entire right-wing media put on Michelle Obama for trying to get kids to eat healthier.

Not that we didn't predict this, but ACA further entrenching insurance companies in the healthcare system hasn't seemed to incentivized them to use their wealth any lobbying power to try and shift trends on these areas. I can't really watch a KFC or Chilli's commercial without feeling like i'm getting atherosclerosis.

It seems like our hypersensitivity to messages regarding our collective health might be meaningfully hurting our collective health.

I guess you could argue it's not government's job to try and make sure we're healthy, but I can't see how our society can thrive without keeping up with the rest of the modern world. Capitalism and tragedy of commons are enemies.

4/20/2016 1:11:59 PM

ACA gave more people coverage by forcing them into the system, but they still can't afford to go to the doctor.

4/20/2016 1:13:54 PM

The agricultural lobby in America is responsible for a lot of the resistance you're describing (and a lot of other bad shit besides). They're heavily invested in the status quo and don't want any change. Republican knee-jerk opposition to anything with an Obama taint doesn't help. And there's simple momentum. If we'd put limits on the size of sodas when soda was invented, nobody would have noticed or cared. But when you change midstream, people feel it and they get agitated.

And I'll lay part of the blame at the media, particularly its coverage of medical research. Every time one new study comes out suggesting something new or counter-intuitive, the news jumps on it. The result is a spate of half-cocked diets (Atkins! Paleo!) and an increasingly mistrustful populace. I can't be only person in this country who feels less inclined to follow health advice because I think that it's liable to have a shelf-life of about a week. The classic examples is eggs -- bad for you one day, miracle food the next, death sentence after that -- but it's bigger stuff too, now. Behold all the new research saying that exercise (exercise, for Christ's sake!) doesn't help with weight loss.

Now having said all that, let's note that we have made progress. I think the slow spread of mandatory calorie listings is good sign -- it's certainly affected my orders when I'm at a place that uses them. And fast food has been very slowly coming around to the idea of healthier orders.

4/20/2016 1:32:53 PM

Quote :

"I hate to be a generationist, but I am when it comes to hating on Baby Boomers. Isn't that who is primarily responsible for this decline?"

What are you talking about? The very best Baby Boomer ever is going to make America great again. It will be fantastic!

Seriously, fuck those guys.

4/20/2016 1:48:25 PM

^Im glad I'm not the only one

4/20/2016 3:23:08 PM

Oh, this inter-generational conflict thing is tired and pointless. The Baby Boom doesn't suck any harder than the generation before, you know, the one that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into treating black people like citizens. Or the one before that, which gave us the Great Depression and Prohibition. Or the ones before that, the ones that gave us slavery, the Civil War, absolute monarchy, human sacrifice, and so on.

About the only thing you can say about Baby Boomers in particular is that they may have a slightly larger influence than most generations because there are so damn many of them relative to the rest of us -- and that, as a result, they will emphasize the flaws in social programs put in place by their predecessors.

4/20/2016 4:17:50 PM