I tried to gift this article so that hopefully those that are interested can read it for free. Warning it is long. WAPO did a year’s long investigation into the causes behind the decrease in the lifespan of Americans. There is a health disparity in America that in many respects mirrors our wealth disparity. Poor people in rural areas have shorter life spans than wealthier urban dwellers. And it is our lifestyles, diet, and access to healthcare that are among the reasons there are increases in obesity, hypertension, and cancer. I, unfortunately, recognized some of myself in this article. https://wapo.st/3ZF1zqt
I didn't grow up poor by any means but my parents didn't feed me a healthy diet when I was young. We had a lot of sugary cereal and waffles most mornings. Lunch was whatever the school served which often was pizza. Dinner was our healthiest meal. Back then though we still got the boiled vegetables or even canned. My mom loves to bake so we have sweets all the time. It was not until after college did I realize just how bad the diet was. Now I'm 38 and eat a keto-type diet. With that said, despite that upbringing, I didn't have any health issues. I was an active kid though. I wonder if the biggest problem today has more to do with kids not playing outside like we used to.
Life expectancy was on a steady upward trajectory, with minor blips here and there, until 2020. And I would argue that little of that had to do with medicine. Since 2020 we’ve seen something like 1.2 million excess deaths due to the *effects* of panic, despair and cannotbevaccines which has served to gut life expectancy. China has now surpassed the U.S. in life expectancy.
This is what's kllling Americans. And the health care system. I didn't need to read this article to know it. I have eyeballs. "In 1990, 11.6 percent of adults in America were obese. Now, that figure is 41.9, according to the CDC."
There's a book called "Wheat Belly" that promotes an interesting theory about the genetic modification of wheat in recent history and how we can't process it the same way. Not sure if I buy it or not. But he noted that most of our grandparents probably didn't work out or have gym memberships, but they probably weren't sitting in a chair for hours at a time either. They seemed to always be up moving around and on their feet. In terms of diet, I got to thinking about my grandparents' house and what we ate there since I spent a lot of time there. The tea was loaded with sugar. She made fried porkchops, fried chicken, or other things with bread, biscuits, rice, or potato salad, etc. Objectively high sodium, high calorie, and high fat - although always home cooked and nothing out of the freezer. They would occasionally eat fast food as a treat, but they'd split the combo meal - I think mostly because my grandfather was cheap. They were both thin and lived to normal ages.
One shopping trip to Walmart is enough to convince anyone of this. I always see middle-aged over-large people slumped over their cart barely moving down the aisle.
I’m not convinced that anyone is dying from being fat. Bear in mind that as Americans were getting fatter and fatter they were living longer and longer … until just recently when we saw downticks that can easily be attributed to other factors.
Yep, life expectancy was 40, in 1900, steadily increasing to almost double that until a slight blip 2016 I think.
If lack of access to healthcare is the drag on life expectancy, what do you with the fact that we’re easily the most medicated nation on the planet ? What if healthcare was the problem ?
We have had national discussions and laws passed on smoking and drinking. I’m surprised we don’t address obesity more than we do.
Hyperinsulinemia is real. Fatty meat, vegetables, fruit. If you leave out processed sugar, seed oils, and grains, you eliminate inflammation, the root cause of most disease.
The concept was good. The execution was awful. I watched my students throw away thousands of dollars of broccoli and salad because, guess what, they're teens. That change starts with education, from home. Not by force, at school.
Not surprising. Have a look at any street in America and it is clear that as a whole the populace is not healthy. The health metrics bear this out as we compare our disease rates to other advanced nations. Not a pretty picture.
Obesity is a significant contributor to chronic illness and shortened life-span. But then why obesity? Children not playing outdoors as much, adult labor becoming increasingly sedentary, and unhealthy high sugar/low fiber/super processed food diets. Healthcare, on the other hand, likely extends life for many who would otherwise have died younger.
