Yesterday, MyWay posted an articled entitled US Slipping in Life Expectancy Rankings. Apparently we’re not living as long as people in, say, people in the EU.
Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries. …
A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Okay. That doesn’t explain the number of recent baby-boomer blog articles I’ve read that started with, "My 90-year-old aunt" (leaving me with pictures of 60-something boomers taking care of the sweet elderly auntie). But whatever. What caught my eye was this:
For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.
And then it went on and on about health care, the improved health care in other countries, and … heath care, health care, health care. I don’t know about you, but I see three parameters in the above sentence, including nutrition and lifestyles, yet all the article could address was health care. Gosh, health care is what you do after you’re not doing so well. What about before?
What about our nutrition? Shouldn’t the food we eat not just fill our stomachs but actually nourish our bodies? What about most of the food we’re able to get — conventional food which may be plowed through and through with weird additives and things that interfere with your digestion? What about cooking (pasteurizing) the enzymes right out of your milk? What about nuking your food so that what you’ve got left is no longer food, but a warm pile of semi-tasteless matter?
And let’s not start on junk food. Food gotten from who knows where and prepared who knows how. Heck, if you really must have French fries, why not get some organic potatoes and deep fry them in a clean, non-rancid organic oil that has actual nutritional value?
Why not handle all this before your biggest need in life is health care? Yes, I know that we get older, but there’s age and then there’s age. I’d had to see us, some time in the future, facing a life that isn’t all it could be due to lack of proper nourishing of the body.
If all these other countries — 41 ahead of us! — can improve their nutrition and lifestyles, why can’t we?
Bottom line: don’t give us poor nutrition and then sell us on health care.
It’s just not right.
Your thoughts?
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