That's the hard part in less developed countries. In 1960 Bangladesh had a child mortality rate of almost 30%. At that time the US was under 3%. Even today with antibiotics etc., Bangladesh is about 5x higher than the US.
I'm honestly not sure what you mean by America's fascination with health: I'm an American, so it of course would seem normal to me. But whatever we're doing, Bangladesh isn't a great comparison to cite as though they're on par with the US because life expectancy there is still about 6 years shorter.
> I'm honestly not sure what you mean by America's fascination with health
Might be referring to the tendency (of some) to track biomarkers in meticulous detail, pay not-insignificant sums for personalized "health plans", stress about exact quantities consumed of various substances, etc
This is not every American of course, only a relatively privileged minority, but I'm not surprised it seems a strange way of living to some, indeed it does to me (also an American)
Maybe it's a form of compensation: i.e., if one feels powerless regarding health-incident factors affecting the public at large (like plastic and chemical contamination in water supplies and household products, herbicides/pesticides and seed oils and antibiotics and excess fat/sodium/sugar/etc in food) one might micromanage personal health decisions to regain a sense of control
There’s a reasonably famous anecdote I saw about that time on Pakistani television, from Qudratullah Shahab’s (federal civil servant at then time) autobiography. The US was sending sanitary aid to Pakistan and the East Bengalis asked for their fair share of it and were told sitting there in the federal secretariat building by the West Pakistanis “Go use a banana leaf” (to wipe your @$&!?!)
the history of what people have resorted to using over the centuries is pretty interesting. There's even a satirical book named Gargantua & Pantagruel written in the 1500's France where characters debate the most comfortable option. IIRC, they settle on a life goose's neck: the feathers make it quite soft.
In the US, a dried out corn cob was a popular choice during the early days, before the 1900's when toilet paper really hit the mainstream. Likely not for comfort though, just because it was what was available. It's probably not great for the average health of a population if they use discarded food that might be partially rotting to wipe their butts. Actually
I mean all the exercising and fretting about “clean food” versus “processed food,” pollution, etc. We don’t do all that.
The difference in child mortality obviously isn’t about “healthy living”—its access to clean water, basic prenatal care and post-delivery care, etc. The difference in life expectancy between Bangladesh and the US at age 60 is just 4 years.
difference in life expectancy between Bangladesh and the US at age 60 is just 4 years.
Which just means the deaths are front-loaded even more towards younger people. It doesn't matter how likely you are to live to X age once you're Y age when there are significant hurdles just to get to Y age. In 1850 in the US, the life expectancy of someone who made it to age 70 was to live another 10 years ~80 or so. Which sounds positive but this sort of thing is a completely useless statistic for evaluating the overall health challenges faced by any population. You can't just choose a later starting point in life, it only tells you one small part of the picture.
A big part of this is the differences in socioeconomic status: Poorer people, especially in less developed societies, can't reach those hurdles: It was pretty hard in those times to live past 50 when you spend 12 hours a day 6 days a week underground in a coal mine, especially compared to someone from an affluent family with better access to healthcare and a job that isn't manual labor.
I think you both appear to be aggressively agreeing with each other.
Yes, deaths are front-loaded towards young people because the biggest variance in average life expectancy is child mortality. In countries like Bangladesh, one's ability to clear that hurdle is certainly correlated with socioeconomic status
Yes, once you clear that hurdle (i.e. for most people in America), there are diminishing returns to life expectancy.
I, for one, am not sure that I fully agree with that last statement. I'd love to see some research studying the average life expectancy of groups that engage in, for example, regular fitness and meditation (especially their effect on life-reducing hypertension).
That's the hard part in less developed countries. In 1960 Bangladesh had a child mortality rate of almost 30%. At that time the US was under 3%. Even today with antibiotics etc., Bangladesh is about 5x higher than the US.
I'm honestly not sure what you mean by America's fascination with health: I'm an American, so it of course would seem normal to me. But whatever we're doing, Bangladesh isn't a great comparison to cite as though they're on par with the US because life expectancy there is still about 6 years shorter.