By The Way...

Monday, July 31, 2006
9:05:00 AM EDT
Hearing King of the Mountain -- Kate Bush
There's a really interesting piece in the New York Times called "So Big and Healthy Grandpa Wouldn’t Even Know You," which looks at the difference between average American men around the time of the Civil War, and the average American man today. Turns out we're really rather different. We're bigger, which should not come as a surprise to anyone, but the amount by which we're healthier is almost astounding. The article starts off with the story of Valentin Keller, who enlisted in the Civil War at 26, was crippled by arthritis a year later and died of "dropsy" at the age of 41 -- which is only four years older than I am today. And yet his decendants have flown past the age Keller died with hardly a problem at all (I feel fine, too). Getting older has definitely gotten different.

I personally find it fascinating that Americans are a mass of contraindicating health vectors. We are indeed heavier and generally don't eat as well as we could -- yet at the same time we are also living longer and healthier lives, thanks to childhood disease prevention (which the article suggests helps avoid other problems in later life) and general advances in medicine and health. It does make me wonder, not how long I will live, but how long my daughter and people her age will. It's entirely possible she will live to 100 -- and be as healthy and active as someone of 70 is today. That's wild. These are interesting times.

(NB: The Times also has an article about the apparent contradiction between Americans' bodies getting larger and our living longer: Living Large and Healthy, but How Long Can It Go On? It's like they're reading my mind.)


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This entry has 3 comments: (Add your own)

• #3 Comment from psychfun 
  8/6/06 2:52 AM | Permalink

  And yet we should remember there are some countries which still struggle with ailments we have not seen in many decades. Hard to believe!
• #2 Comment from mavarin 
  7/31/06 11:35 PM | Permalink

  Well, look at all the contradictory health data we wade through - cholesterol is bad - but not all kinds of it, and cutting back on dietary cholesterol may not help. Carbs are bad, or maybe not, or maybe some kinds, at certain times of day.  Or maybe...!  Still, we do know some useful stuff.  Back in the 19th Century, they were lucky to know how to prevent scurvy, let alone know how to prevent or treat diseases, keep wounds from getting infected, etc.
• #1 Comment from monponsett 
  7/31/06 11:10 AM | Permalink

  My husband had to walk through the Mayflower is full Quasimodo bent-forwardness.... and I had to curl up in a ball to lay in a Mayflower bed- and I'm 5 feet tall..