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Author
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Topic: Lifespan Crisis In America
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Gia
Moderator Posts: 714
From: California
Registered: May 2004
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posted September 25, 2004 11:54 AM
 
Lifespan Crisis Hits
Supersize America
By Robin McKie
Science Editor
The Observer - UK
9-19-4
Bloated, blue-collar Americans - gorged on diets of fries and burgers, but denied their share of US riches - are bringing the nation's steady rise in life expectancy to a grinding halt.
Twenty years ago, the US, the richest nation on the planet, led the world's longevity league. Today, American women rank only 19th, while males can manage only 28th place, alongside men from Brunei.
These startling figures are blamed by researchers on two key factors: obesity, and inequality of health care. A man born in a poor area of Washington can have a life expectancy that is 40 years less than a woman in a prosperous neighbourhood only a few blocks away, for example.
'A look at the Americans' health reveals astonishing inequalities in our society,' state Professor Lawrence Jacobs of Minnesota University and Professor James Morone, of Brown University, Rhode Island, in the journal American Prospect .
Their paper is one of a recent swathe of studies that have uncovered a shocking truth: America, once the home of the world's best-fed, longest-lived people, is now a divided nation made up of a rich elite and a large underclass of poor, ill-fed, often obese, men and women who are dying early.
In another newly published paper, statisticians at Boston College reveal that in France, Japan and Switzerland, men and women aged 65 now live several years longer than they do in the US. Indeed, America only just scrapes above Mexico and most East European nations.
This decline is astonishing given America's wealth. Not only is it Earth's richest nation, it devotes more gross domestic product - 13 per cent - to health care than any other developed nation. Switzerland comes next with 10 per cent; Britain spends 7 per cent. As the Boston group - Alicia Munnell, Robert Hatch and James Lee - point out: 'The richer a country is, the more resources it can dedicate to education, medical and other goods and services associated with great longevity.' The result in every other developed country has been an unbroken rise in life expectancy since 1960.
But this formula no longer applies to America, where life expectancy's rise has slowed but not yet stopped, because resources are now so unevenly distributed. When the Boston College group compared men and women in America's top 10 per cent wage bracket with those in the bottom ten per cent, they found the former group earned 17 times more than the latter. In Japan, Switzerland and Norway, this ratio is only five-to-one.
Jacobs and Morone state: 'Check-ups, screenings and vaccinations save lives, improve well-being, and are shockingly uneven [in America]. Well-insured people get assigned hospital beds; the uninsured get patched up and sent back to the streets.' For poor Americans, health service provision is little better than that in third world nations. 'People die younger in Harlem than in Bangladesh,' report Jacobs and Morone.
Consumption of alcohol, tobacco and food can also have a huge impact on life expectancy. The first two factors are not involved with America's longevity crisis. Smoking and drinking are modest compared with Europe. Food consumption is a different matter, however, for the US has experienced an explosion in obesity rates in the past 20 years. As a result, 34 per cent of all women in the US are obese compared with 4 per cent in Japan. For men, the figures are 28 and 2 per cent respectively.
'US obesity rates jumped in the 1980s and 1990s, and the vast majority of the population affected by obesity had not yet reached age 65 by 2000,' state the Boston group. 'As the large baby boom cohort begins to turn 65 in coming years, a stronger connection between obesity rates and life expectancy may emerge.'
In other words, as the nation's middle-aged fatties reach retirement age, more and more will start to die out. Life expectancy in the US could then actually go into decline.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1307954,00.html I have to add this does not surprise me in the slightest. All I have to do is walk down any street here to see the evidence. People are getting larger and larger. They are eating foods that were not supposed to be processed by the human body and they are eating them in astronomical quantities. Even the salads here are enough to serve a family of four. For goodness sake!!! All this, 'all you can eat stuff' and then doggie bags to take more home. It is totally out of hand. Do we now eat to live, or just live to eat? Also, why are people constantly walking around or driving in cars, sucking out of paper cups? Don't they drink at home anymore? Do people like to eat and drink on the go all the time? I see kids on the school bus sucking on soda at 7.00 in the morning!?! Breakfast one supposes. These kids will grow up with these habits. It's something that really makes me worry. We are responsible for them. They are just kids who rely on us for better judgement, and we are letting them down big time. I'd like to add that in Europe fast food companies are charged extra taxes. These special taxes go towards cleaning their trash from highways and public roads. We need to do something here. The roads and highways are dump sites for fast food containers and beer cans. I know it's education. I do see signs everywhere, but nothing seems to be enforced and the problem persists. Sorry about the rant. Any views?
 Gia
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Cassandra_Cameron
Knowflake Posts: 50
From: manhattan, new york
Registered: May 2004
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posted September 25, 2004 02:33 PM
Well Gia, i completely agree with you.I personally feel that we as americans have gotten used to this "gluttonous lifestyle". We are just spoilt with all the "easy way out" gimmicks that we tend to become more and more lazy and lethargic. Remember the times of yore, when women would wake up at the crack of dawn, prepare a breakfast for the entire household, feed the chickens, milk the cows, clean the whole house, do all the laundry, prepare 3 square meals, help the kiddies with their homework, bonk up with the hubbie at night... and still get a full nights sleep. And look now, when we live with alarm clocks, automatic this and that, electronic this and that, we still complain of less and less amounts of sleep What happened to the days of a good old healthy home cooked meal from scratch... have the frozen and packed preservatives clotted our brains along with our arteries??? Think about it  and  Cassandra
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trillian
Moderator Posts: 2446
From: The Boundless
Registered: Mar 2003
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posted September 25, 2004 04:21 PM
You're right Cassandra, but it's not just gluttony.
Good food is expensive. Organics are costly.Food is so overly processed, filled with hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, one of the worst things we can put in our bodies. And yet, a walk down the aisle in any grocery store and you will find item after item after item, laden with these cheap oils. It's the quality of food that often hurts us, not just the quantity. As Gia said...all those sodas. And they're absolutely insidious. So full of sodium, it's impossible for them to quench any thirst...they are designed so you just drink more and more. Don't even get me started on diet sodas... IP: Logged |
Gia
Moderator Posts: 714
From: California
Registered: May 2004
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posted September 26, 2004 01:59 PM
It's not just organic versus non organic foods though. People prefer to eat out of a box. Look at the ingredients on the back of one of those awful "Marie Callender' meals, and you would be amazed. How about those disgusting 'Sarah Lee' products? I don't normally watch television, but the other night I caught this reality show about mother swapping. One of the women was obese. She had two children that were also sadly very large. She told all of us viewers that she never cooked, not ever. All her food came out of a box. Her attitude was, if it's quick and hot and goes down, it's food. Those were her precise words. It's typical! My own neighbours hardly ever cook. They love coming over for dinner. Everytime I've been over to my nearest neighbours for dinner, apart from organic salads which Deb. buys for me, the rest is catered. Always. I know life is busy, but when are we going to stop and think about this issue? I feel sorry for the kids. Disease does not just happen because it does. It is accumalative and often self created. Gia
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Yin
Knowflake Posts: 368
From:
Registered: May 2004
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posted September 26, 2004 05:27 PM
I just want to add that it is not easy to educate anybody about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.
I'm very close with my MIL (we live in the same house) and yet when it comes to nutrition she prefers to trust her therapist telling her to start the South Beach Diet over my suggestion that avoiding sugars and heavily prossesed foods in her diet will only do her good.IP: Logged |
Gia
Moderator Posts: 714
From: California
Registered: May 2004
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posted September 26, 2004 06:56 PM
I know. That's why I think educating kids whilst they are still developing habits can make all the difference in the world. Gia IP: Logged |
Sheaa Olein
Knowflake Posts: 812
From: UK
Registered: Jul 2004
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posted September 27, 2004 10:10 AM
I agree, it does  ------------------
"Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny."
-Frank Outlaw IP: Logged | |
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