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> And regarding reporting, how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Or are you supposed to cover every heart attack on a news story?

No, but you can spend a bit more time on coverage of new findings/research regarding the causes, initiatives and scientific progress towards treatment etc. Sure it isn't sexy but I think there is enough sensationalism to go around to fund some sensible reporting.

The causes of obesity in the US are well known and reported on, just not as "health" pieces. Food deserts, car-centric infrastructure, poor work-life balance, rising costs of groceries, low access to preventative screens. The only novel research in my opinion would deal with micro plastics and the effect they have on hormones.

The causes should be ranked not by body count/percentages, but rather in years of life taken compared to life expectancy. If someone lived to 105 years it doesn't really matter what killed him, if it's at 30 it does.

I’d love to apply the same logic to voting and weight votes by how long the voter is expected to have to deal with the consequences.

So the people with the least amount of experience would be making all the decisions? You must be a young person.

Not as young as I was when I voted in my first election, about 25 years ago ;)

You assume young people will vote for other people like them rather than whoever they think would actually run the country best for the long term? You must be an old person.

No, I’m old enough to understand that people in different age groups have different mentalities. Sure, there are 18-year-olds that are mature beyond their years to the extent that they are willing to consider the interest of older people, but it’s not the norm.

Its funny cause the mood among the young people is that the American government is entirely run by geriatrics for other 50+ people. I'm sure they'd be very happy with better representation, though apparently not enough to get them to actually vote for it

You can do this in the news, basically everything you do in finance is look at charts and see trends going up or down, everyone can see it and it informs way more than a story, people do want it, What I wouldn't give for an itemized table of the goings on in my country/city/county but I don't think the government itself wants that, its why they refuse audits, nobody but the ones high up know what the trends actually are, if things are actually improving or not, we are all blind trying to see and the news is there to extract revenue from speculation not from real data.

(And yes I'm aware chartr exists)

> And regarding reporting, how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Or are you supposed to cover every heart attack on a news story?

The article addresses your point with: "A newspaper that constantly covers heart disease and kidney failure would be a boring one that soon goes out of business."

The last paragraph is about whether or not the bias matters, and I find the conclusion particularly interesting: "But there’s one final reason why this bias matters. It makes it hard for us to understand how causes of death are changing over time."

What exactly is the point you are making?

It is very reasonable to think that our attention (in the form of editorialized reporting, or funded initiatives) is being spent on actual material problems affecting most people, and this article is claiming this is a gap here... which I, and maybe many others think is valuable.

> how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"?

Until its less of a problem? Like any difficult problem in the world, you can keep coming at it from different ways, use the latest / most effective tools of the day, look for new opportunities, etc, etc.

>What exactly is the point you are making?

1- That "cancer/strokes/heart problems" happens is hardly news, despite "killing more people" than other things reported. Especially since almost everybody old enough eventually suffers such health problems.

2- Despite their little newsorthiness, they're still covered in a big way, and there are huge industries around their awareness.

3- Homicide is inherently more newsworthy than "people get heart attacks". And even more important to cover where those crimes happen disproportionately compared to other comparable countries.

> Until its less of a problem?

As if the problem with people being fat is that there's not enough reporting of them being fat?

I still don't get what you think is "newsworthy", or what "should" be reported on.

Why is homicide inherently more newsworthy than "people get heart attacks"? It completely depends on how much homicide is happening, how many heart attacks are happening, and what we as a society think is reasonable for either fatality. Given how few people are dying with homicides, how many people are dying from a preventable disease -- which is what the main article here says -- I think there can absolutely more attention put on the preventable disease. Particularly at a moment in time when funding for healthcare by the government is being dramatically reduced.

> I still don't get what you think is "newsworthy", or what "should" be reported on.

That people die from heart disease and cancer, especially when they get older, is common knowledge. That's what makes it less newsworthy versus a local homicide story that is not common knowledge.

That there is some amount of local homicide is common knowledge. See, I can do it too :)

The question about "what should be reported on more" is really about "which thing is worth spending more resources / attention / publicity" on, and I personally would put that towards a preventable disease that far too many people are dying of.

Newspapers used to have an obituary section which did in fact report the deaths of most people, regardless of cause. Now these tend to get posted online instead, on social media and the websites of funeral homes. I am not convinced that readers of newspapers in the era of obits were less interested in, or had a more accurate understanding of the death rate of, murder and terrorism.

Otherwise agree, but

>And in most western countries a "school shooting" is nothing a person should even have to think or plan about, and schools don't ever need metal detectors, or to have to plan around such things.

School shootings are still very much a thing where I live (finland), last one being just last year. A country with no guns and supposed to be one of the happiest in the world still experiences them

The one before that was in 2008, so a good 16 years between the two. I.e. not something people ever have to think about.

All "active shootings" (mostly not school shootings) in the US kill only about twice as many people per year as lightning strikes. Pretty sure not many people think about those.

There's not really anything that can be done about lightning strikes.

There is, it's just that we've been doing it for so long that it's gone from being a decorative motif to a boring and ugly background feature of the architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod

The metal shell of most vehicles also protect the occupants from lightning strikes.

Sure but most people end up getting killed when walking/hiking across golf courses and fields and things in storms.

Nothing to be done about the lighting strikes that kill people - exposed, in nature, doing stupid shit during storms.

Not about those in cities averted by lighting rods.

A lightning protection system only protects the building and the equipment attached to it. I suppose you could make an argument that it protects occupants from fires caused by lightning strikes, but it’s there to protect the building and equipment first and foremost.

Fun fact: lightning rods are called air terminals.

It's wild that mass murder is just treated like weather over there. Occasional rain of lead.

Fewer victims than earthquakes too.

No sane society would be comforted by the fact an active mass murdering act is "just twice as bad" as some natural phenomenon.

Comforted? No. Not allowing to be duped into anxiety and kneejerks - hopefully yes.

There's always a rental truck or a ton of fertilizer for the Cains of today.

Compared to the rate of defensive gun use appears to be worthwhile.

"Rate of defensive gun use" is also a social red flag, whether that includes actually firing the weapon or not.

I see this narrative a lot from Americans who often hold the EU/Europe (also often conflated when they're not the same thing) as some kind of utopia when it comes to stuff like that.

In reality, while it is nowhere near as bad as in the US, but there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe. Guns are still guns and humans are still humans unfortunately

> there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe

Once a decade at most in most countries. Usually less than that.

Compared to what in the US, once a month?

Yes, guns are still guns and humans are still humans, but it's not nearly comparable.

You need to compare the whole of Europe (EU, EEA, whatever) to be roughly comparrable to "the US"

Finland is about the same size of say Minnesota, and Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August

Exactly, across the whole of Europe it's more than once a decade.

Definitely not as bad as the US though, I acknowledge that, but people tend to paint it in black and white terms when the reality is messier

If this map [0] is accurate, in the past ~60 years Europe had 166 school shootings while the US had 2980. That's 18x more shootings in the US compared to Europe.

Shootings per million people 0.22 in Europe vs. 8.68 for the US, 40x difference. Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as an organized terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]).

Your comment is definitely trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort.

[0] https://brilliantmaps.com/school-shooting-maps/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege

> Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as a terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]).

A terrorist attack where the anti-terrorist special forces used tanks and thermobaric missiles against the school premises, killing many hostages in the process and giving plenty of warning to the terrorists to kill even more. A horrific event all around.

I literally said that: 1. It's way worse in the US 2. It still happens in Europe

That seems also like what you're saying?

Edit: It is true that in the UK this is pretty much unheard of since handguns were banned after Dunblane (it is literally impossible to get a handgun legally, Team GB pistol shooters have to train abroad).

So yes to be fair that kind of very extreme approach does seem to work so far

Personal Protection Weapons are technically still a thing, as a result of the ECHR Article 2 which says that the state has a positive duty to protect life.

I don't think numbers are published for mainland GB, but it's likely less than a thousand - perhaps even just a few dozen. The Home Secretary has to authorise the licence, and they're limited to people with a verifiable active threat against their life.

(There are more in Northern Ireland as a legacy of the troubles - 2,924 in 2012, probably closer to 2,000 now. The rules are a little more lax, with the PSNI Chief Constable being sufficient for sign-off.)

A PPW firearms certificate allows a handgun of up to 9mm/.38 calibre, and up to 50 rounds of ammunition.

But none have been used in a school shooting, of course.

Interesting, I didn't know that, I always thought it was literally police/security services only.

Also worth pointing out for non UK people: you can still legally licence shotguns (relatively easily) and some kinds of rifle (not so easily). Shotguns are somewhat common in the countryside but other guns (even rifles) are quite rare

So if you’re wealthy and have connections, you can get a gun in the UK?

Sure, if there's a verifiable active threat against your life.

I'd honestly expect most PPW holders in GB to be prison officers. There'll be a few wealthier folk in NI as a hangover from the troubles - business owners who refused to pay protection money, high court judges who sat on prominent terrorist trials, that sort of thing.

But the criteria are much the same as those for being afforded police protection, so your actual billionaires and dukes would almost certainly opt for that instead if they were under that sort of threat.

What you said stays equally true even if every US school had a shooting morning, noon, and evening, while Europe had exactly 2 shootings ever, both in the past 10 years. A statement of fact can be worthless or misleading too if presented a certain way.

That's why I didn't say you were factually wrong but that you're trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort. Whataboutism is all misdirection and deflection rather than factually wrong statements.

> So yes to be fair that kind of very extreme approach does seem to work so far

I do not see evidence that the approach works. There were very few school shootings (or any shootings, really) before the handgun ban too. There are only two on this list that predate the handgun ban: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

The UK has a lower per capita level of knife murders than the US too so its not just access to guns that is an issue.

What about school stabbings? Or use of other weaponry or substances?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_stabbings_in_the_...

3 in the last year, none in a school. I'm not sure what your point is.

The point is that guns are not the only weapon that are used to harm people. Fewer guns does not necessarily prevent people from harming others. If making comparisons between countries, account for the population of the country and that guns are not necessarily used in the same frequency in all countries so we should be looking at school incidents as a whole including stabbing, shootings, automobiles, or other lethal methods.

The UK has 1/5th of the population of the US, and 12x the population of Minnesota.

The last school shooting was the Dunblane Massacre in 1996, which led to gun law changes, removing rights to have handguns and various semi-automatic weapons.

I'm not sure how many occurred before then, but the total number of mass shootings in the UK is low. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... to get a feel for how rare this sort of attack is in any setting here in the UK.

So for the last 25 years we've had no school shootings. I believe the US as a whole has had >300 shootings so far this year, with >300 victims.

You clearly missed the sarcasm

> Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August

Ok, i'll turn the sarcasm detector up a notch :)

Finland had one last year, and the previous one in 2008, "since August" doesn't say much.

What do you consider a shooting? If it’s simply a gun within the vicinity of a school being fired (injury/death not required), then Canada has them all the time.

Here's a seemingly decent article on the topic: https://www.dw.com/en/graz-austria-europe-school-shootings-u...

So rarely than don't even register in most EU countries. And when they happen, they're more likely than not, by people inspired by the media exposure of the 10x-30x more frequent US cases.

There is an emerging and more frequent problem with religious terrorism though (people driving cars into crowds, shooting up concerts, etc). A problem created for absolutely no reason by stupid encouragement of mass immigration.

A problem created for absolutely no reason by a bunch of idiots[1] playing world police under obviously false pretenses for the benefit of absolutely no one of their constituents. They played with the thermostat, left things hot and some unrepentantly notorious twat[2] is still hungry and ready for seconds.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azores_Summit

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_International_Transitiona...

Was watching a documentary a few weeks ago regarding the many bomb shelters in Switzerland, and it mentioned that during World War II all adult citizens were required to have a gun in Switzerland and citizens were trained on their use. Switzerland‘s goal was to make itself very difficult to be attacked by Germany and to ensure that all citizens were capable of fighting back. This in combination with the mountainous terrain, and the many fortifications were claimed to be a reason behind Switzerland, not being attacked by Germany. Not sure about the veracity of that though.

"A country with no gun". Finland is in top 10 guns per capita in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

Not to mention, number 2 in firearms per household (different stat because it is independent of the size of a household's arsenal).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_gun...

You guys had a shooting last year, but school shootings in the US average to ~1 per day

Finland be a wee bit smaller than the US and 1 per day in US is a huge exaggeration. 13 total in US in 2024 … you were only off by 1,300% though. Also, Finland has the population of 1/2 of Los Angeles. Wow

>School shootings in 2024 dipped slightly from the year before, but the 330 school shootings recorded last year still mark the second-highest number since 1966

https://www.k12dive.com/news/school-shootings-2024-near-reco...

Believe this article is quoting the total number of students shot not the total number of incidents as the numbers are much higher than any other statistics that I’ve seen from more reputable sites.

That's not correct. It counts the total number of school shootings. Some of those shootings had no victims. The total of students shot is also provided with some more elaboration with charts here.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2...

As you can see your number of 13 makes no sense, there were 200-300 students shot (!)

Mass shootings in the US, are a little over 1 a day. School shootings are a subset, and as cudgy says, so far 13 this year.

I think there are actually more school shootings than mass shootings because mass requires ~4 victims and school doesn't. There were ~330 shootings in 2024. 70 people died. 200 wounded.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2...

Hardly "no guns" though: "In Finland, approximately 12% of the population owns firearms, with around 650,000 people holding at least one permit for about 1.5 million registered firearms".

When I visited my friend in Finland, we got to an outdoor range to shoot with AK-47 clones (in 5.56 and something bigger) and shotguns with slugs. No instructor need. Was enough that he had a license. Fun times.

Next day we drove with a tank through a forest.

Compared to other EU countries Finland is pretty easy going when it comes to guns.

> A country with no guns and supposed to be one of the happiest in the world still experiences them

Do you know the difference between 1% and 99%? Once every 10 years vs. once every year?

A desert with a single tree vs. a forest with a dead tree, a lake on a continent vs. an island in the ocean.. are those the same things to you?

>how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"

Until it's fixed. I don't think I need to tell you how many times they will write "[politician bad] regardless of the truth to it.

>there's hardly any scarcity of news reports around health issues like obesity, or cancer either.

Follow the money. Obesity is double, but" fitness" is a billion dollar industry. The message is never "eat less calories and stop subsidizing high fructose corn syrup", it's "buy this new MAGIC pill" or "get swole at the gym near you for $50/month (don't worry you can't cancel easily)" or "try this new diet plan with food we send to you".

Cancee is definitely more news hype though. Any little breadcrumb of progress is another package of "have we finally cracked the code to cancer?!" (Betteridge's law applies here). It is exciting stuff but not how the news frames it.