The sad state of U.S. life expectancy
npr.org
npr.org
Obesity, PFAS, all the other current top candidates are absolutely a part, but I think the stress of living under our economic/political system is causing a lot of this.
Stress causes inflammation, inflammation causes all kinds of issues. You can think of stress as an inverted proxy for wealth on a population level as well.
Stress drives cortisol drives obesity. This is a well established pathway, at least for some people with increased glucocorticoid sensitivity.
I do wonder if perhaps it wasn't our environment that suddenly became stressful (all your family at risk of dying of the plague has to be more stressful than missing a deadline set by your boss).
Perhaps vulnerability to stress is caused by some other, as yet unidentified factor that suddenly became big around 1900?
I switched to a whole food diet (raw fruits, veggies, some carbs, no added sugars).
All my health issues went away (high blood pressure, diabetes, IBS, gerd).
I miss going out to eat but all they serve here in America is slop.
there are still some people who think COVID impacted fit people equally...as if it were some random lightning strike
the least obese state as of 2019 is more obese than the most obese state as of 1990
literally no one is making progress
now the rest of the world is adopting the American lifestyle and catching up to us on obesity too
we dramatically underestimate the amount of physical activity we need
we dramatically misunderstand nutrition
next up in the US is people moving from merely obese to morbidly obese - 200lbs+ will be normal...300lbs+ is next-level
HN has this weird thing where they tell me "correlation does not equal causation" so we can't really say obesity is related to diet and exercise
suuuure
Correlation does-not *Imply* Causation : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...
Possibly a measurement difference. More frequent testing leads to both earlier detection and thus higher reported occurrence. Another factor might be that it gives more false positives and thus higher stress levels and from that, higher incidence of various disorders.
But also, the article doesn’t exactly say “other wise healthy adults“, it says “Americans with healthy behaviors, for example, those who are not obese or do not smoke”. Those people might have a disease from bad habits they had earlier in live. They also may not have truly bad habits, but yet lead a more sedentary live than similar groups in other countries, etc.
I hear more about don't drink or even don't shower orders in Michigan and Mississippi etc. than I do in Europe. Also groundwater contaminations like PG&E hexavalent chromium or Palestine vinyl chloride. American culture is quite a thing. Does anywhere else talk about things like the EPA as a New World Order conspiracy or have a political party that is popular because it proudly brags about letting companies pollute more?
Not to mention... the cars. So many cars. Such big cars. And no walking.
More resources? If you're walking to the store, this shouldn't be an issue, and in fact is a negative. Avoiding walking is why Americans are so fat.
Luckily we invented refrigerators so this is not an issue. Things can stay fresh and just as healthy for weeks.
>More resources? If you're walking to the store, this shouldn't be an issue, and in fact is a negative. Avoiding walking is why Americans are so fat.
As in, buying in bulk saves money and resources versus buying in small amounts. Indeed Americans are fat, but adding a few walks here and there isn't going to fix that. American diet is absolute garbage and the portions are insane.
No, they don't. Try keeping sushi in a fridge for a few weeks and then eating it, and see what happens to you.
Many vegetables don't do well in a fridge either, and wilt after a few days.
Yes, they do.
>Try keeping sushi in a fridge for a few weeks and then eating it, and see what happens to you. Many vegetables don't do well in a fridge either, and wilt after a few days.
Luckily we've invented these things called freezers, and most refrigerators come with them. Veggies will last weeks in there, if not longer.
I wish society learned that exercise is not how you combat obesity.
While I agree that movement is the secret to a healthier life, the obesity epidemic is due to increasing levels of sugars and carbs in the diet, and having been convinced that fats are bad by medical crooks and the food industry.
In fact everybody is looking forward to hyper-processed fake meat which takes us further and further away from the plain, natural food our bodies thrive on.
Americans keep repeating this to themselves and think it's true.
Yet in countries where people walk a lot more, people aren't nearly as fat, even though they have just as much sugars and carbs.
For reference, 1 hour walk is ~300 kcal. That's 3 slices of white bread, or a little more than a half-litre bottle of Coke. How many people overeat by that amount, and how many walk at least one hour every day?
Countries where people move more also eat less. Because we are a complex chemical machine, not a dumb furnace.
Eat too much -> metabolic syndrome -> exercise becomes more difficult and tiring -> psychological/satiety issues -> overeat -> GOTO 10. We now know how obesity works, but it doesn't fit on a slogan short enough to write on a cereal box or in a doctor's office poster, so they just tell people to walk more and skip red meat, even though it completely misses the point.
With the pandemic, we saw lots of Americans move from these walkable places to completely un-walkable places in Florida because they were working from home now, and could afford a bigger house there.
American cities are the way they are because that's what Americans want, and that's what they buy. If Americans really wanted to live in walkable places, they'd refuse to move to or buy homes in places that aren't walkable. That's just not what we see.
Exercise is important, but walking can only do so much when the average American eats almost seven Big Macs worth of calories daily (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_food_ener...). You can have a Big Mac meal with fries and evil HFCS soda three times a day and still eat fewer calories than the average American. An extra mile a day of walking burns about 100 calories, or just over 1 Oreo.
It also only is about leisure time physical activity. So, if a subject buys a robot lawn mower, stops mowing the garden every week, and starts driving to the gym to do half an hour of moderate exercise once a month, the number measured here goes up.
Ignoring those, it says
“The prevalence of insufficient activity was not significantly different in 2018 compared with 1998 for most subgroups (Table 3), with exceptions of increases among men, adults aged 65 years or older, adults of Hispanic origin, adults with less than a high school education, adults in the Midwest or South Census regions, and adults with obesity, and a decrease among adults with a college degree or higher.”
and
“recent increases in meeting or exceeding the guideline overall are primarily driven by more people reporting sufficient activity to meet the high guideline, not the minimal guideline.”
So, it seems any increase in exercise comes from those already doing it doing more of it.
Google tells me an Oreo has 53 calories, so it’s not quite that bad
Apparently copious unfulfilling underpaid labor may lead to escapism. Simultaneously we're exporting inflation to our southern neighbors who have a robust, lucrative industry which may lead to conditions favoring that fate.
Yeah, no. Drug overdoses account for ~100k of the annual 3.4 million deaths. That's less than 3%.
Talk is cheap. Show me the maths.
https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-de...
Do you not understand how life expectancy is calculated?
44 or under, not 44.