11–20 of 39 posts
Life in rural America has always been difficult. Appalachia, for example, has a history of severe poverty that in some ways still exists. https://www.reddit.com/r/Appalachia/comments/vizs8f/it_blows...
How much of this is simply a lack of healthcare availability in rural areas? We've been seeing reports for years of health clinics and hospitals closing in rural areas. Even emergency services are becoming problematic. Consider that cardiovascular issues are one of the leading causes of death in the US. Time is of the essence. If your local hospital has been closed, your emergency services have been consolidated in y…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you see as the biggest lifestyle choices they're making having an impact on their health that folks from urban areas aren't making as much?
Here's an anecdote: where I live the closest gym is 19 miles away. The closest park that has walking trails is a little over 12 miles away. Walking/running/cycling on the county roads is not wise. There is a seasonal farmer's market in the closest city to us (~15 miles away), but it's only open one day a week for 4 hours. The closest "healthy" grocery store (like Sprouts, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's) is 32.9 miles away…
How much of this is simply a lack of healthcare availability in rural areas? We've been seeing reports for years of health clinics and hospitals closing in rural areas. Even emergency services are becoming problematic. Consider that cardiovascular issues are one of the leading causes of death in the US. Time is of the essence. If your local hospital has been closed, your emergency services have been consolidated in y…
Access to American health care has jack shit in common with being able to live a healthy lifestyle. You can learn the latter from personal trainers, self-help books, physical education, sports involvement, all sorts of ways. Then you summon the discipline to adhere to such a lifestyle, and there's nothing a physician can do to influence those decisions.
The American health care system may be useful in cases of GSW or cardiac events or broken limbs, but people who use it exceedingly sparingly are the ones who end up enjoying health and wellness, without being inexorably steered into a pharmacy or chemotherapy.
Follow the money here: look at some maps; I've found in my urban area that FQHCs open up to take Medicaid/Medicare dollars for services to the poor and vulnerable. In the affluent neighborhoods, you'll find cosmetic clinics and surgeons, along with massage, spas, and boutique concierge naturopaths and other alternative practitioners. (None of the above are proven to extend lifespans nor improve outcomes for the sick.)
Don't believe me? Ask practicing physicians, who are utterly exasperated and fed up with all the patients who abused/neglected their bodies and now expect medicine to "fix them up" like the Tech Support desk. They can do nothing of the kind. Hopefully, they are compassionate and honest about those limitations.
I was raised and live in an area of Central Texas with some of the highest growth rates in the US. It might be that a sort of rural gentrification is just destroying a lifestyle that was always taken for granted. Small farms/ranches around here are economically unfeasible. Small businesses cannot compete with large well established/funded corporations. Handyman jobs (still needed) are commodified and often the answer…
Life in rural America has always been difficult. Appalachia, for example, has a history of severe poverty that in some ways still exists. https://www.reddit.com/r/Appalachia/comments/vizs8f/it_blows...
Appalachia is particularly cursed by geography. Mountainous areas can't support much large-scale economic activity beyond subsistence farming, resource extraction, and tourism. It's just too expensive to move things around. We see the same issues in other countries as well.
The issues with Appalachia aren't the result of some impossible geographic curse, they're the accumulation of countless political and economic decisions against trying to improve the region. All it would take to fix it is decades of coordinated efforts at every level of society. Obviously that's not going to happen, but recognizing that it's possible is better than pretending that we don't have the ability to change anything about the situation.
How much of this is simply a lack of healthcare availability in rural areas? We've been seeing reports for years of health clinics and hospitals closing in rural areas. Even emergency services are becoming problematic. Consider that cardiovascular issues are one of the leading causes of death in the US. Time is of the essence. If your local hospital has been closed, your emergency services have been consolidated in y…
> How much of this is simply a lack of healthcare availability in rural areas Speaking as someone who lives in a rural area - this ain't it. The lifestyle choices are the biggest problem. Availability is just addressing the problem at the end of the problem.
I have lost 35lbs so far this year and it is pretty shocking the health benefits of not over eating good tasting food.
I think we all know this too but are collectively in denial because it is so boring eating chicken breast, broccoli and mustard yet again as I am right now instead of the awesome tasting dish from the incredible restaurants we have all over.
That is even with not drinking, not smoking and going to the gym for years.
People don't just want their cake and eat it too they want their cigarettes/vapes and smoke them too, a six pack and drink it too, a pizza to eat before the cake,all while only abstaining from physical activity.
I grew up in a small town, about 1000 people. I can only visit for 2 or 3 days because there is zero options for eating healthy. The gas station has pizza and subs, Dollar General has no produce, and the one restraunt is burgers and fries. I feel tired and gross after a few days. I can't image what years of that diet would do to a person.
The entire food system is fucked, and it takes Herculean strength to overcome it.
How much of this is simply a lack of healthcare availability in rural areas? We've been seeing reports for years of health clinics and hospitals closing in rural areas. Even emergency services are becoming problematic. Consider that cardiovascular issues are one of the leading causes of death in the US. Time is of the essence. If your local hospital has been closed, your emergency services have been consolidated in y…
The same is true for men of rural areas who are left to perish and become hopeless.
You'll die faster from hopelessness than any lifestyle choice.