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The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

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Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#81

Post by petschge »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #72
petschge wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But is that a cause or an effect?

Pretty sure dying early doesn't make you fat.

That part is easy. But did being fat lead to health problems (that then also kill you), or did health problems lead to being fat (which then also kills you)?

And that is before we get into the entire bit where the data shows that most of the difference comes from lives lost at mid age (betwqeen ages 5 and 40), which is younger than the range where "being fat" typically catches up to you.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#82

Post by makeitdouble »

sparker72678 wrote: post #59
pcurve wrote: post #51

each dot represents metro area representing 100k. I wonder how this would look if you separate the data by race and average weight?

The article breaks it down; disparity is consistent across age, race, gender, income…

Curious how you isolate for race between two separate continents ?

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#84

Post by hooverd »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #68
Gordonjcp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name an American food that isn't brown? At least in the UK people eat vegetables that don't come from cans. Americans sure do love their bland fatty salty food, though.

The solution to a low quality HN comment is to downvote it, not to return the volley with another low quality comment.

Hey, those munchies boxes look delicious!

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#85

Post by Avshalom »

xjlin0 wrote: post #66

Obesity play a role in this. I wish the study can consider the body weight too.

it did https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799922583326720 it's not nearly the only thing.

and as the npr article from a couple days ago and this point out https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799742228144130 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799722418556931

the gap is there at all ages.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#86

Post by japhyr »

bitwize wrote: post #37
Swenrekcah wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll admit I didn’t look up those numbers but I read about these things way too regularly. But that’s of course not the main thing about guns and kids in the US like everyone knows.

Statistically speaking, suicide is the #1 cause of gun death in the US, gang activity is #2. School shootings are far down the list. They get a lot of attention but don't account for a large proportion of deaths. Of course, that any of these deaths occur is tragic, which is why the most sensible solution is repeal of the Second Amendment and implementation of a nationwide, federal license requirement to purchase or o…

That doesn't require a repeal of the second amendment. That just requires a willingness to interpret the full text of the amendment, instead of focusing only on the last four words.

School shootings are far down the list as far as fatalities go. But that's a poor way to measure the impact of school shootings. The trauma inflicted by each of these events goes way beyond the number of children killed. Everyone who has heard actual gunshots in their own school building feels life-changing trauma.

When a kid in the US says "I'm scared to go to school," you can't tell them they have nothing to be scared of. You can tell them "It's not likely to happen at your school today." That's small comfort.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#88

Post by anbende »

michaelt wrote: post #78
nicoburns wrote: post #56

This seems unsurprising given the drastic differences in typical diet and exercise levels, and the availability of healthcare.

Eh, we Brits are no models of good diet and exercise. According to [1] while Americans have the highest obesity rates among major countries, Brits have the third-highest obesity rates. [1] https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/21/british-people-fat-no-denying...

While that's true, the difference may still be enough to explain the 2-4 year difference in life expectancy that is shown on the chart.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#89

Post by Avshalom »

makeitdouble wrote: post #61

The Financial Times column from where it comes from: https://enterprise-sharing.ft.com/error-pages/expired-link?c...

here's a twitter thread with a lot more diagrams. https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799627128143873

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#90

Post by nicoburns »

petschge wrote: post #81
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure dying early doesn't make you fat.

That part is easy. But did being fat lead to health problems (that then also kill you), or did health problems lead to being fat (which then also kills you)? And that is before we get into the entire bit where the data shows that most of the difference comes from lives lost at mid age (betwqeen ages 5 and 40), which is younger than the range where "being fat" typically catches up to you.

I would suggest that poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle lead to both people being fat and to health issues. FWIW, it's been a common pattern for friends of mine who visit the US for even short periods of say 2 weeks to put on small but noticable amounts of weight.
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