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Comment by dukeyukey | Hacker News Reader

I dunno about this - at least here in the UK, London (jam-packed with that demographic, including me and most of my friends) is the fittest, least overweight part of the country, with among the highest life expectancy.

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Do you and your friends in London all drive to work? Or do you walk/metro?

The lifestyle shift the grandparent poster was referring to is typical of suburban and rural areas, but not really urban areas. I suspect people in more rural parts of the UK are very different from your London cohort.

Nobody drives - they all either work from home (most), take public transport, or walk/cycle in. Parent comment explicitly called out "middle class city people" so I figure this is more than valid.

“City people” in the United States still often means people who drive anywhere more than a block away to avoid such extreme exertion. I think driving is really under-discussed in these discussions because once you raise the issue of so much sedentary time you realize we need to change so much of our culture and built environment.

The UK is obsessively into exercise. It might be because a trip to the doctors for anything short of a bullet to the head invariably involves being told to exercise more.

and still a lower life expectancy compared to the US, goes to show how better medical care trumps exercise

UK life expectancy is around 4-5 years higher than the US. I love the US and would absolutely move there given a working visa, but ya gotta be honest about this.

Hmm? Both of your statements are not true.

NHS problems notwithstanding, US healthcare is garbage unless you're getting paid $80k+ per year. The 37k per annum suckers, which is about half the country, don't have a lot of options and die earlier because of it.

where are you seeing a lower life expectancy for the UK vs US?

By ‘city people’ they probably meant suburbs in the US. 99% if suburbs are car-mandatory.

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