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U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

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Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#221

Post by anchochilis »

vandreas2 wrote: post #207
californical wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that making it a personal choice seems to be failing us. We’ve been telling people to do that for decades, and they’re not — make it a societal choice so that it’s individuals are automatically enrolled in a system that promotes their health rather than forcing them to sit in a car seat for hours per week

The "you are beautiful no matter how you look" social campaign probably doesn't help here. There are literally visual cues that you 're doing something in excess and your doctor tells you to lose weight but Instagram says it's ok to be obese. I wonder if there's a limit to it, is it still ok to be twice your normal weight overweight?

Do you live in the US? Fat people are routinely discriminated against in employment and healthcare. A few Instagram influencers and ad campaigns don't negate that.

I have never met a fat person who wasn't aware they are fat. I do know two people who have failed to lose significant weight even after bariatric surgery physically restricted how much they could eat.

After even the most extreme medical intervention fails and you are still obese, what can you do? Stay inside your home forever so that thin people are not forced to look at you? Never eat a piece of cake in public? Never go shopping, never date, never dance?

Of course not. In the end the only choice is to live your life anyway, in spite of your reduced opportunities and the judgment you receive from others.

If you're brave, you might even dare to post photos of yourself on Instagram.

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#222

Post by chownie »

remarkEon wrote: post #159
californical wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that making it a personal choice seems to be failing us. We’ve been telling people to do that for decades, and they’re not — make it a societal choice so that it’s individuals are automatically enrolled in a system that promotes their health rather than forcing them to sit in a car seat for hours per week

I find it fascinating, from an social science perspective, that in other critical areas of society social shaming is encouraged, but when it comes to human fitness we will invent PhD theses worth of reasons for why that's not allowed. I 100% agree with you though, the physical structure of (most) US cities makes this difficult if you yourself don't prioritize it, or you can't afford to.

Fat shaming just doesnt work, the only provable outcomes are mental illness and weight gain.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4236245/

It's also a huge glaring actor/observer asymmetry issue, you think between the 50's and now human beings innately changed to be lazier, more prone to overconsumption? Why opt for blaming the individual multiplied by 70 million rather than looking at the conditions of their shared environment?

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#223

Post by _ph_ »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #107
californical wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, we can start to treat city planning as a healthcare issue. Limit zoning restrictions that currently make driving everywhere the most convenient choice, stop all freeway expansion projects, and make as many walkable, bikeable, friendly neighborhoods as possible. If people want/need to go outside and walk or bike to accomplish their daily chores, they won’t need to think about exercise as much because it’ll ju…

People will literally rezone entire cities rather than saying we need to eat less food and workout more.

The whole concept of "workout" is absurd considering how much effort and energy we spent in removing any physical challenge from our day-to-day life, especially considering how bad for the environment (global warming) the consequences are. I am not saying that people should have to work hard for the simplest things in life, but just designing cities around short walking distances and cycling vs. driving even the shortest distances would mean better health and nicer and healthier cities.

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#224

Post by chaosbolt »

wsc981 wrote: post #92

Regarding excess deaths, Dr. John Campbell has an interesting video on the subject [0], mainly regarding Scotland but he talks about other countries as well. Of course, as excess deaths increase, average life expectancy will reduce. Seems many countries have seen a big increase in excess deaths, but thus far the cause is unknown. These 'cause unknown' excess deaths are not attributed to COVID, as COVID deaths are a s…

No post body was provided.

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#225

Post by AlchemistCamp »

nu11ptr wrote: post #121
midoridensha wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One of the greatest failings of our "modern" healthcare system is that there's no plan to address this crisis. Obesity is the gateway to what seems like an infinite amount of health complications What are they supposed to do? Obesity is caused by American's terrible lifestyle. Healthcare systems can only do so much to compensate for a bad lifestyle. Stop drinking alcohol, and start walking everywhere instead of driv…

For starters, they could stop encouraging unhealthy eating ( cough food pyramid cough ). We should be be eating like our grandparent's grandparents (or as I call it: 'A real food' diet) but instead they tell us to shun meat but feel free to eat all the heavily processed carbs with HFCS and canola oil foods you want. Don't eat red meat, but pizza and fries are just fine!

My two of my great-grandparents lived in the house where I was growing up as a kid and teenager. They were both born in 1905, both much thinner than their descendants and both lived to their mid 90s.

Their diet was closer to the food pyramid than mine has ever been. Breakfast every morning was either Quaker oatmeal, Creme of Wheat or a similar cereal, one piece of fruit and coffee. Their lunch and supper was impossibly boring arrangements of sandwiches, meat and potatoes with a vegetable on the side, and the occasional dessert once a week or so.

They didn't "shun" meat per se, but they did live through the depression, WWII rationing, etc, and really weren't used to large quantities of it outside of big holiday dinners.

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#226

Post by wickedsickeune »

onion2k wrote: post #214
ahtihn wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaming works . There's nothing wrong with doctors telling overweight patients to lose weight. Because it is unhealthy.

Shaming works. Why is obesity becoming more common when every doctor tells people to lose weight then?

It's obviously people who like being ashamed! /s

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#227

Post by godelski »

midoridensha wrote: post #45
remarkEon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear, hear. One of the greatest failings of our "modern" healthcare system is that there's no plan to address this crisis. Obesity is the gateway to what seems like an infinite amount of health complications - not to mention the additional burden on the health care system itself when they get sick. I fully acknowledge that it's a difficult subject, it upsets people, and it's uncomfortable. The greatest healthcare adv…

>One of the greatest failings of our "modern" healthcare system is that there's no plan to address this crisis. Obesity is the gateway to what seems like an infinite amount of health complications What are they supposed to do? Obesity is caused by American's terrible lifestyle. Healthcare systems can only do so much to compensate for a bad lifestyle. Stop drinking alcohol, and start walking everywhere instead of driv…

> and start walking everywhere instead of driving.

This sounds nice until you actually look at most of America. Cities are designed around cars. I'm in a rather walkable city and the nearest grocery store is a mile away. That's not too bad, but other places I've lived it is 5+. Buses are bad (hour+ between pickups) or non-existent. It gets difficult to do all kinds of chores, visit the doctor or whatever. Even using a bike my grocery store shopping becomes a multi-hour experience that I have to do more than once a week where a car is 30 minutes and once every week because I can carry more. The experience is completely different in a city where I would rather actually walk than take a car. I don't think this is an uncommon experience either. What I'm trying to say is that it isn't great to just tell people to start walking but rather to recognize the design and incentives places by that design. The burdens that it creates. If you want people to walk more for their commutes then you need to design cities for walking. I've lived in many places in America where sidewalks are non-existent. If you live in these places and walk you either have a death wish or a DUI. But rather, build it and they will walk.

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#228

Post by vandreas2 »

vandreas2 wrote: post #207
californical wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that making it a personal choice seems to be failing us. We’ve been telling people to do that for decades, and they’re not — make it a societal choice so that it’s individuals are automatically enrolled in a system that promotes their health rather than forcing them to sit in a car seat for hours per week

The "you are beautiful no matter how you look" social campaign probably doesn't help here. There are literally visual cues that you 're doing something in excess and your doctor tells you to lose weight but Instagram says it's ok to be obese. I wonder if there's a limit to it, is it still ok to be twice your normal weight overweight?

I live in Europe. For employment that demands physical stamina it makes sense that fat people would not be favoured at the extreme level of obesity. My healthcare provider differentiates between overweight and obese and you can't treat triage as discrimination. There's a whole lot of middle ground between staying in your home not eating cake and promoting yourself on Instagram. Date and dance as you see fit.

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#229

Post by hackerlight »

bee_rider wrote: post #98
hackerlight wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to be that guy, but people who are susceptible to reinfection are also probably less healthy.

I'm pretty sure everyone is susceptible to reinfection after a while.

Susceptibility is also a spectrum, though, which is what I meant to get at and failed to communicate clearly. Immunocompromised people are probably more susceptible than others? I don't have data on that, it's just a guess.

Re: U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline

#230

Post by seeraan »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #177
eric4smith wrote: post #3

Obesity. Covid literally attacks obese people. And obese people also are at huge risk. I'm overweight and I was literally frightened during covid. Now I lift weights every day and work on my diet very hard. But we are literally ignoring the elephant (literally) in the room.

imo, one of the biggest causes of obesity is calories in drinks. sodas, juices, and alcohol are all incredibly easy ways to add a few thousand calories per week to your diet without filing you up at all. milk is slightly better (but only because it naturally has a much smaller serving size).

Yes this is exactly right.

I am obese. I am a tall guy who had been athletic most of my life until moving into the corporate world and spending most of my time at work at a desk. I dont' drink or smoke. I am still quite active on the weekends and weekdays. I am in Japan currently so I walk alot.

But I've still been struggling for the past 8 years trying to lose weight and I even moved to Japan to try to put myself in an environment that generally has healthy food options.

By FAR the biggest impact I've found on my weight is coca cola and other sugary type drinks. Unfortunately I am addicted to it and have a really hard time stopping.

Right now I'm in a good spot, losing weight, and feeling pretty healthy and what helped immensely was Japan restaurants always having green tea and other healthy drink options so it could help me avoid drinking coke. I still love coke and I am always wanting that or dr. pepper or something similar. Whenever I go back to the US and go out to eat I really struggle finding drink options that are healthy and that I enjoy and its so easy to just order a soda.

I imagine that are millions of people that are like me - generally healthy but because they drink coke or other sugary drinks on a regular basis they are killing themselves. I am pretty sure that the obesity situation won't go away if people are drinking sugary drinks all the time like I was. It was super difficult for me to stop in Japan even when I was away from that type of culture.

Additionally there was another post here that I really agree with: "The good news is that maybe we got it backwards, in at least some of the cases[1]: > Higher fasting insulin and higher c-reactive protein confound the association between BMI and the risk of all-cause mortality. The increase in mortality that has been attributed to higher BMI is more likely due to hyperinsulinemia and inflammation rather than obesity."

When COVID started I stopped going outside because of lockdowns and worry about my obesity and it really impacted my health. I started feeling much worse all the time because I wasn't' active and I became very sensitive to the food i was eating. I realized that my blood sugar was going all over the place depending on what I eat and I believe I had high levels of inflammation due to that. I then switched to a diet that balanced my blood sugar much more (Stopped eating pasta, or lots of bread, and other things that spike your blood sugar and switched to eating Kind Bars and mostly protein or green things when i felt hungry) and even before i started losing weight this made a huge difference in my standard of living and how I felt. I was still the same weight but my general health and concentration increased a lot and was one of the reasons I could start having energy to focus on losing weight.

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