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 neighborhood only a few blocks away, for example.
"A look at the Americans' health reveals astonishing inequalities in our society," stated 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 Eastern European nations.
This decline is astonishing given America's wealth. Not only is it Earth's richest nation, it devotes more of its GDP -- 13 per cent -- to health care than any other developed nation.
Switzerland comes next with 10 percent; Britain spends 7 percent. 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 percent wage bracket with those in the bottom 10 percent, they found the former group earned 17 times more than the latter. In Japan, Switzerland and Norway, this ratio is only five-to-one.
"Check-ups, screenings and vaccinations save lives, improve well-being, and are shockingly uneven (in America)," Jacobs and Morone state.
"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," Jacobs' and Morone's report stated.
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 percent of all women in the US are obese compared with 4 percent in Japan. For men, the figures are 28 and 2 percent 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," the Boston group stated.
"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.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
RSS