Life expectancy, the number of years that the average person is expected to live, has indeed increased (at least before the Covid pandemic, which caused a decline in life expectancy). Life expectancy for a male resident of the USA has risen from about 40 years in 1800 to over 78 years in 2019. (It fell by about 2 years by 2021.) That certainly seems like people are living longer.
But averages are funny things. For any average, there are some who will be below average and some who are above, sometimes far below or above. The increase in life expectancy over the last 200 years came about primarily because fewer and fewer people died at very young ages, raising the average. But for those living above an average lifespan, there has been almost no change at all. The very oldest people in ancient Rome lived to be about 100 years old. Just as they do today. Just as they have in the interim.
So yes, on average people are living longer but only because advances in nutrition and medicine and safety have prevented people from dying young. Of course that is not bad news.
There is some bad news though.
Life expectancy is rising, but we are also spending more time living in poor health. In fact we are now spending more years in poor health than at any time in our history. Although average global life expectancy more than doubled between 1800 and 2017 – from 30 to 73 years – the proportion of people’s lives lived in poor or moderate health has remained unchanged at about 50%. So your longer life means you are going to spend more time sick.
Again this is an average and it is not inevitable. Quality of life chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in the United States. And many of these are the result of lifestyle choices that we make throughout our life. So if you want that extra life expectancy to be lived in good health, you better get on the ball now.
No comments:
Post a Comment