RFK wants to make America healthy again, but an NYT asks the basic question: When were we ever healthy? The experts they talk to say ... no, not really. Access to fresh fruits and vegetables was more difficult. Lots of smoking and drinking. Inconsistent access to medical care. Smoking is down. Deaths from cancer and heart disease are down ... NYT requires a subscription but you see gist. Have Americans Ever Really Been Healthy?
My subscription says I can share the article. The lead pic cracks me up of a doctor smoking. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/...e_code=1.rE4.adTk.Juv3bSOAtAz5&smid=url-share
Doctor: “The medication I prescribed has taken pounds off you. Now are you beginning to see the way to health is losing weight ?” Patient: “I don’t know, Doc. Now that I’ve been on the medication, for twelve weeks now, I can’t see.”
A decent amt of extreme athletes still smoke. I met a few crazy free divers in Hondurus last summer. They were all smokers.
An obese non-smoker is probably giving away 7 to 8 years of life expectancy on average, depending on how obese they are.
Smoking definitely kills. The two easiest ways to extend your life expectancy is to not be obese and to not smoke. I would wager the average life expectancy of a female, non-obese non-smoker is somewhere around 90.
LOL when I was 14 I went on a 14 day wilderness canoe trip from Ely Minnesota up into Canada. One of the scout leaders on the trip was a local surgeon. When we came to portages the adults and older kids would carry the canoes and the younger kids would carry the packs. Me and the doctors son couldn't figure out why the docs pack was so heavy so at one of the portages we stopped and opened Docs pack. He had a carton of cigarettes and a couple of bottles of booze in his pack. The adults had preached to us how important it was to pack light.
Seems like everyone in my parents generation smoked. It's hard to consider us healthy when almost half of Americans smoked. My dad died at 71, smoking unfiltered cigarettes right to the end. Surprised he lasted that long. Percentage of smokers by year U.S. 1965-2019 | Statista
US is more obesity rates have increased. “US obesity rates have tripled over the last 60 years. Severe obesity, also known as morbid obesity, has risen tenfold.” US obesity rates have tripled over the last 60 years
