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Comment by bediger4000 | Hacker News Reader

What are we to make of this? Should this data be considered at all?

"life expectancy fell by one-tenth of a year, from 78.9 in 2014 to 78.8 in 2015, according to the latest data. The last time U.S. life expectancy at birth declined was in 1993, when it dropped from 75.6 to 75.4"

"Experts cautioned against interpreting too much from a single year of data; the numbers could reverse themselves next year, they said."

I'd be more suspicious of a completely monotonic data set. "For the first time since 1993" sounds dramatic in a headline but it also means it's only a single data point.

Eat healthy, exercise, don't smoke, stay a good weight.. you will do better than average, on average. I think this is all just a trend of our not healthy culture. If over 10 years everyone gains 10 pounds, your life expectancy is not going to do awesome things.

Is there evidence that our culture is becoming less healthy? It seemed to me that we, meaning the US as a whole, have been building better habits.

I feel that this is an economic issue more than anything else.

Anecdotally I notice that a lot more younger people seem to be eating healthy and exercising regularly (although it seems to be two extremes with the other younger people being particularly unhealthy and a lack of people in the middle). Maybe the problem is that the push for healthy eating and exercise in culture has come too late for some people who are now at the age where their bad habits are leading to early death.

I see that too, among the relatively wealthy, well-educated people that make up most of my friend groups and family. However, as a primary care doctor, I can tell you that obesity and type II diabetes seem to be affecting people at a younger and younger age amongst the poor. I'll look for actual data later this afternoon, but that's been my experience and those docs who have been practicing decades longer than me tend to agree.

>Anecdotally I notice that a lot more younger people seem to be eating healthy and exercising regularly

How long has it been since you visited a school? It's very depressing to see how many elementary aged children are 20+ lbs overweight.

I've noticed this but left if out of my comment. The reason being that young children generally aren't in control of their diet and exercise so it's probably a result of the parents and where they fit in on the two extremes I've mentioned.

> Is there evidence that our culture is becoming less healthy?

Obesity is widespread and extreme.

Is there evidence that our culture is becoming less healthy?

A trip to any U. S. major theme park ought to do the trick, preferably one of the ones around Orlando.

It seemed to me that we, meaning the US as a whole, have been building better habits.

I hesitate to pull the "you live in a bubble" card, but I think it applies here. If I looked around me here in Seattle, I might agree with you. Buncha fit hiker/snowboarder types driving Subarus on their way to the xTREME Mudfest This Is Sparta Run Sponsored by Rockstar Energy Drink. You have nothing in your profile for me to go on, so I'll go with assuming you're a 20/30-something bro living around SV who's into running/biking/whatever like all of your friends. You look around and go, "obesity problem? What obesity problem?"

Then I hop on a plane to visit my parents in Florida, and the bubble pops. O...M...G, when did children turn into such butterballs? Oh, that explains it: look at their parents. Pictures of friends in the Midwest? Same thing: when did my classmates get so fat? Again, I don't know your background, but if you're basing your opinion on what you've seen on the west coast, you're doing it wrong.

If you think Florida is bad, try Appalachia. I moved from Orlando to Seattle and earlier this year took a trip to Gatlinburg. The obesity there was just insane.

Good point; sadly it's been a good ten years since I've been near the NC mountains and I've forgotten. I have no reason to think it has improved. Though the fact that the wife and I lost weight when we moved from NC to Seattle ought to tell you something.

Living in urban Northern Virginia (NoVa), I had a similar culture-shock when I moved to NortheEastern North Carolina, a very rural area. All of my coworkers and neighbors were obese, I quickly became known around town as the weird guy who walked everywhere, and at restaurants my friends would make fun of me for eating salads while taking pride in showing off how much food they could eat at one sitting. I once made the mistake of making a critical comment about McDonald's and was accused of "pushing a liberal agenda."

Back in NoVa years later, and the mindset down there still baffles me. Heart disease and diabetes are just kind of accepted as inevitable natural outcomes of aging, and are not seen as the consequences of overindulgence.

Hard to say but baby boomer obesity is a probably factor. Boomers are reaching end of life ages and their obesity issues are contributing to early mortality. The boomer population is so large that even a small uptick in obesity related mortality will show up in the national average.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa055643#t=article

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831354/

According to the article, though:

> Life expectancy at age 65 did not fall, another indication that the diseases behind the lower life expectancy occur in middle age or younger.

That improvements in healthcare can't keep up with the bad choices we make when it comes to nutrition and exercise.

Perhaps, changing demographics is also a likely contributor. We have more poor people these days, both through immigration and growing income inequality/stagflation. Poor people can't invest are much time/money/energy into their health. And yes poorer individuals often make bad choices, usually through prioritizing the short-term to the detriment of the long-term, but it's hard to place too much blame on them given the circumstances they find themselves in.

This might be pedantic, but stagflation doesn't describe our economy. Stagflation would indicate stagnant growth and too high inflation. Inflation is currently at 1.6% according to the BLS for the past 12 mo. If anything, that is a little too low due as the Fed's target is about 2%. Growth is also going the correct direction as the Fed is forecasting growth for 2016 of around 1.6-2%.

Does that mean the economy is perfect? Of course not, but stagflation probably isn't the right word either.

You're right, I was using it as a catch-all term which I really shouldn't do.

What I was trying to get at was the trend of rising costs of living with stagnant wages which a lot of people have been seeing for the past couple decades. Need to come up with a good portmanteau for that :)

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