How bad is the health of citizens in the United States? I read that obesity and diabetes is climbing at alarming rates.
The fact that adequate health care is out of the reach of many does not help the situation.
Obesity and diabetes are symptoms of a rich country with easy access to food. They are problems of course, but I would think the USA population is very healthy in comparison to many less wealthy countries.
A rough measure of overall health is life expectancy.
Compared with other countries, the US ranks 31 in life expectancy.
Cyprus, Chile and Costa Rica are just above, and Cuba just below at number 32.
There are many wealthy countries with access to rich food, whose life expectancy all exceed the USA (which is on par with Cuba and Costa Rica). So there’s clearly an issue.
Source: World Health Authority.
GreenWyvern beat me to it.
But obesity and diabetes are self-inflicted.
Obesity, you have a point. Diabetes you do not.
You don’t need to be massively overweight to get diabetes.
You’re saying someone with the auto-immune disease known as Type 1 diabetes is “self-inflicted”? How… peculiar.
Yeah, right, I get it - fat people and diabetics brought it on themselves, therefore they somehow deserve to have nerve damage, limbs rotting off, blindness, kidney disease – har, har, let 'em suffer, right?
People with that attitude disgust me.
To keep things uniform, we clearly have to change our name to “Cunited States of America”
I C what you did there.
Well Type II diabetes is partially self-inflicted. I know and I used to be obese. But in comparing life expectancies, it is relatively minor. Right now it seems to be opiod addiction that is driving life expectancy down. But the big reason would seem to be lack of medicare. And that attitude disgusts me too. Even obesity can sometimes be ameliorated by doctor’s advice. I know, I did it. But then I live in an enlightened country where everyone gets medicare.
Compared to other countries, the US is huge. The average is brought down by a bunch of Souther States.
I live in CA, which is larger than most European countries, and we’re doing OK.
You don’t have to be, but it sure helps.
This mostly genetic. Cuba and Costa Rica are filled with hispanics who tend to live longer than non-hispanic whites. If the US Hispanic population was a separate country it would have the fourth longest life expectancy in the world.
I’ve got a sore knee.
79.3 (for a country the size of a continent) verse 83.7 (for a small homogenous island nation, though I grant you they do have a large population, unlike most of the rest of the countries ahead of the US on this list) isn’t that far a difference, it doesn’t seem to me. Much larger than the difference between the US and, say, China or Russia which are very large nations with large mixed populations.
I do agree we could do better, especially in some of the poorer states which is what really brings down the national average, as John Mace pointed out.
Yes, that’s one of the surprising things if you look at the breakdown in the US by ethnic group. For my state, CA:
Whites 79.8
Hispanics 83.2
Asians 86.3
Blacks 75.1
Native 80.2
Not sure if it is genetic or cultural (related to diet, etc) or a combo. But something not-so-obvious is going on. Could be that Asians and Natives, closely related genetically, have something us Whites and Blacks don’t have, and it could be that Hispanics are benefiting from a significant amount of Native genetic heritage. But Whites and Natives are pretty close.
America has higher than average rates of obesity (compared to other wealthy nations) but we have lower rates of smoking compared to them too. So as far as lifestyle we are both worse (with obesity) and better (with smoking) compared to other wealthy nations.
Life expectancy at birth is lower, but life expectancy at age 65 is fairly average compared to other wealthy nations.
I’d guess we really aren’t that bad. Not top of the line, but nothing horrible either.
I would vigorously dispute this too. While obesity and lack of exercise are definitely common contributory factors, I’ve cared for dozens of type II diabetics who, at their time of diagnosis, were not significantly overweight and did not lead particularly sedentary lives either.
Diabetes II is a disease of insulin resistance and said resistance can occur in a variety of clinical settings, not just that of being fat and inert.
But yes, probably 90% of the diabetes II patients I see do fit the stereotype.
Most of the nations with high life expectancy are highly urbanized nations, where a high proportion of the population live with ready access to hospitals and medical specialists. Ethiopia has over 100-million people, but less than 3% live in a city bigger than Lubbock or Fort Wayne. Obviously, a majority of people in Ethiopia have likely never even seen a medically-trained professional.
Access to urban health care probably has the largest impact on infant mortality rate. Some poor rural countries still lose ten percent of their newborns, most of whom could have been saved by even a rudimentary clinic and/or a safe public water supply…