Baby Boomers face more health problems than their parents

At age 16 we stop moving, we start driving. Our economy is "knowledged based", that means most of us are sedentary, most of the time. We drive home from work, open a can of beer and a bag of chips, then sit down again in front of TV. The vast bulk of food we eat is WRONG. The only foods you should eat are meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. That's it. That's all. Virtually ALL of the other stuff will make you sick, over time. Every day, move your body, breathe hard and sweat for at least a few minutes. take up yoga, tai-chi, or power-walking. Avoid doctors, lawyers and virtually ALL drugs. Sell your car and TV.

An article in the WSJ a few years ago really caught my attention; a study showed boomers were dieing ahead of the national average. When I looked at my HS graduating class I found 30% had died, that we knew of, before the age of 60. Only a few deaths were attributed to Vietnam or 911. Contributing factors: fast food, drugs, & stress. We were the first generation that had to succeed, ie. be the best baseball player, dancer, class president, go to college, etc. Also, first generation really trying to keep up with the Joneses, again stress. We are also first generation to be worried about parents,(care givers) and at the same time having children in college. Whould really like to see someone really look into the death rates of people 50 - 62.

UR notsosmart wrote:

Fat,spoiled,lazy AMERICANS.

At least we have some of the nicest looking teeth in the world.

i'm not saying it doesn't hurt. i'm saying that if more people were even willing to put in 40hrs a week of good ol fashioned work, then this country would be a better place. you see, whether it was pioneers or the fine women of this country that built all the tanks and planes and such for WWII, the thing that all these people had in common is that they all had a good work ethic, their work actually produced something, and all around these hard working people made this country what it was prior to the baby boomer, GREAT.
now everyone is just trying to take a piece of that greatness without giving back, without having to work for it. and i'll tell you now like i told people when i was 12 that the U.S. was not immune from attack on our own soil, this is not going to get any better unless we have a drastic shift.
who the hell wants to live to be 100 anyways. then all you really can do is sit around and talk about the good old days, if you can remember them, and complain about what a horrible world this has become. life is precious and all, but if we let people die when they were supposed to, instead of keeping broken machines working with duct tape, health care costs would be down, population would be down, politics and policies as much as i don't like them, would at least become a little more efficient, and MOST importantly, people would start making more of their lives.
i could go on, but no one would probably listen to me because i'm still too young. but you'll see, i know things.

Anamouse wrote:

<quoted text>
I think you're a little young to brag, talk to me when you're 75. I have some real bad news for you, the Pioneer lifestlye you are leading is not likely to keep you in tip top shape when you get older, any more than it helped the generations of people who grew up a hundred years ago doing the same things you are doing.
Most people who have your routine wear many parts of their bodies out and by the time their 60 they have more aches and tired bones than they can count. Their easy to spot, many look hardened, like tough old birds. They take a little time to get going in the morning, get up slowely, many walk a little funny, and most remember the good ol days when everything didn't hurt. Remember, our pioneering ancestors worked hard, ate natural foods, were rarely overweight, and usually died long before they hit their mid 60s. The average Greek or Roman livespan was about 20-30 years, and even in the early 20th century the avarage lifespan was only 30 to 45.
I'm not suggesting you'd be better off as an overweight couch potato, but regular 60 to 90 hour weeks of hard physical labor has never been associated with a long life free of physical problems.
If you want to live a long comfortable life, I strongly suggest you cut back if you can.

Jib,

I don't disagree that we are getting awfull soft and that's not good for us but I did disagree with any presumption that horendously long work days doing physical labor are good for you in the long run.

I think our bigger problem will eventually be our softening mentality about our own need to keep our country strong, that will eventually allow our country to be dominated by more agressive countries. We've become so complacent and accepting of everything that politicians are doing to weaken our country and give it away that it that doesn't stop soon we may pass the breaking point and become little more than another third world country.

We are currently cutting our military to the bone under the belief that if we render ourselves a defensless nation, other countries like Russia, China and the Middle East will embrace us with kindness, and what we are seeing is opposite. They quietly sit by and smile each time we intentionally weaken ourselves and when it really counts they strengthen themselves and add the vary things we thought we were buying with kindness, like nuclear capability.

On the home front we have been sooooo generous to illegal immigrants that the flood has trashed our economy and overwelmed our hospitals and social services. Americans have less so that they can have more and there is no end in sight.

We're so politically correct that we can't even prevent terrorism in our own country like little countries like Israel already does. If we had adopted Israel's attitude at our airports 911 would never have happened.

We're embracing national health care which will further weaken us by taxing the heck out of us so that we can extend coverage to every person in the world who wants to come here, and we even just quit stopping people from other countries with Aids from comming here. Once they get here we keep them and provide them with free medical care for life.

No, I don't think the worst problem is that we don't work long long hours. I think we could all work a lot less if we started putting U.S. first, and be stronger at the same time.

We've become so weak that even tiny countries, like Iran and Korea, think there's no risk in defying us, and they do. What are we going to do if a hungry China starts telling us they need more oil and start using there military to keep us away? We can't even intimidate Iran.

anamouse
yup. with a couple of varying opinions that pretty much sums it up.
what do you think about these things.
universal health care, bad idea. making the health care industry lower its prices obscenely, good idea.
in fact, while on the topic of economics, what about just going back to good old fashioned trade. then people couldn't just do a job for "the money". if you produce something, you're of value, if you don't, you're not. there's too many people throughout the world and especially this country than are of no benefit to society whatsoever. in a trade system, they would be worthless, be broke, and hopefully die.
i read a book once that compared our current societal mindstate to the people back in the early 1900's with the flying machines. a guy would ride a bike with wings attached to it off a cliff, then when he realized that it didn't work, he'd peddle faster trying to make it work, all the while plummeting to his doom. i believe this to be very true. and the biggest part of fixing the problem is a good old fashioned culling of the herd. humanitarianism for what its worth, doesn't work. and this comes from a guy that used to be a hippy.
life sentence prisoners, execute them. murderers and so on, execute them. people that decide to have 8 children knowing that they are going to need welfare, execute them, the parents, not the children of course, afterall its not their fault their parents are stupid. and you know what, if we started swinging people by the yard-arm in the town square, or for the sake of modern times, on the 6 o'clock news, people would start straightening up and flying right.
i apologize if it offends, but its the truth. political correctness is a sham.
and while we're talking about cleaning up society, how about a little decency in the world. if our society was not money based, we would still need police, except they would be on patrol for the arrogant individuals that still talk on their cell phones while driving, don't use turn signals, come to my pumpkin patch and sit on my pumpkins, etc. etc. and on the tv and radio as well. the words they can say over the airwaves these days is unbelievable. and i have a mouth like a sailor, but i curb it around youngsters, old people and so on. but there is no control over who can and can't listen to the radio or watch tv. even the internet. there's always a way around it. so its their responsibility to make sure that the content is appropriate for ALL ages.
Last thing. Cars. and this falls in the cull the herd part and the #$%holes part. the ultra bright lights that everyone has these days, its not cool its rude. the other thing is, why do we have speed limits that go to 75mph and cars that go up to 120? if the politicians really cared about our safety and wellbeing, they would make laws that made car manufacturers put restrictor plates on the cars kind of like they do in NASCAR at Talladega.
any questions?

jlb wrote:

anamouse
the other thing is, why do we have speed limits that go to 75mph and cars that go up to 120? if the politicians really cared about our safety and wellbeing, they would make laws that made car manufacturers put restrictor plates on the cars kind of like they do in NASCAR at Talladega.
any questions?

You have said a lot. I don't blame equipment for problems like speeding, I blame the people and am also guilty of having travled cross country at 120 mph many times when I was younger and didn't think I was any threat to anyone but me when I did it.
Once you leave the big cities there are many very good very striaght cross country roads where 120 mph is not at all unreasonalbe, provided you have a car that is safe at those speeds. Mine had the tires, brakes and suspension it needed to do that so I felt save. When no one else was in sight I often ran that speed and on a few occasions got to to do it for about 2 hours at a time. My gas tank wasn't large enough to do it any longer.
You'd probably be surprised how much 120 mph feels like 80 mph on a smooth road. The biggest difference you notice is that you get places much faster, and since my trips were to places like Colorado, it made non stop without sleep much safer. If I drove 55 mph back then I had to stay up for so long that I got real tired and was falling asleep at the wheel... not to smart but what can I say, I did it. My record from Colorado to LA was 16 hours, and I didn't get sleepy at all. I felt safer.
Now I don't even own a car that can go that fast, so I top out at about 85mph.