The United State's life expectancy is up. Our deaths are down. Our # 1 killer is down. Yet we are in the middle of an obesity epidemic
The US life expectancy is falling behind other countries. Who should we blame? Lack of insurance, and of course, OBESITY!
- "The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy,"said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. "We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times."
That's about the stupidest bullshit I've ever heard. Millions of people around the world have the ability to make the same choices. I hardly see that as a reason to blame ourselves for being fat.
- Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
But lets back up for a second. The National Center for Health Statistics is a part of the CDC. The CDC are the same ones that said OMG! 365,000 people a year in the US die from Obesity!! A couple of months later, that number is more like 112,000. 112,000 out of approximately 2.4 million deaths.
The CDC goes on to say "Because obesity has so many different effects on so many diseases, it is extremely difficult for doctors to identify obesity-related deaths reliably on death certificates. So, instead, scientists use complex modeling techniques to estimate deaths related to obesity. CDC is supporting research to improve these methods."
So there we go. We really cant prove right now how many people have died directly from obesity. We cant tell how many people have a disease because they were obese. The information just doesn't exist.
- Life Expectancy in 2000 was 77.0 years. This is up from 76.7 in 1999. As of 2004 its now at 77.9. We gained almost a year in life expectancy in 4 years. In fact, life expectancy has been up almost every single year since the 1900's. There are a few years it remained the same, but it has never gone down. Ever. In the past ten years, we have gained 2.1 years.
- Deaths in 2000 were down 1.1%. The # 1 killer, diseases of the heart, was down 3.7%. In fact, "From 1980 to 2000, in individuals aged 25 to 84, the age-adjusted rate of coronary heart disease fell from 542.9 to 266.8 cases per 100,000 in men, and from 263.3 to 134.4 cases per 100,000 in women." Deaths in general have been down for years.
We really aren't as bad as they make us out to be.
- Another reason for the U.S. drop in the ranking is that the Census Bureau now tracks life expectancy for a lot more countries -- 222 in 2004 -- than it did in the 1980s. However, that does not explain why so many countries entered the rankings with longer life expectancies than the United States.
Different countries do things differently, I understand that. And yes, there is going to be places that are healthier than us. How about we work on getting insurance for the 45 million people here that go without it? Thats a fine place to start. Instead of dumping millions and billions of dollars into the weight loss industry and obesity research, why don't we spend a little more time and money on caring about the poor in this country.
