I'm also guessing two other factors will turn out to partially explain these differences:
1) less leisure time in the U.S.
2) much higher pharmaceutical drug use in U.S.
Along with more driveness in our merit-based system for income security; whereas England's entitlement-oriented system, which is bottoming-out like Germany's, permits less Type A behavior.
The disparities occur even though medical spending per person is more than twice as high in the United States. The differences between the two countries in smoking, obesity and alcohol use did not explain the differences. Smoking levels are similar, while excessive drinking is more common in England and obesity is more prevalent in the US.
So maybe obesity is more damaging of health (on the whole) than even excessive drinking?
Yes, and obese people are not only more likely to develop life threatening diseases, but in doing so tend to be placed on multiple drug medications that often increase toxic burdens and iotragenic effects.
Obesity is bound to be the biggest factor in the differences in health between the US and Europe. One need only visit a European city to notice that people walk much more and eat much less. Fast food is also a culprit. People don't realize just how bad deep fried food is for their bodies even though there have been countless medical journal articles proclaiming that trans fats and damaged fats are killing people, they are still stuffing down french fries, fried chicken, fried cheese "there's a cardiovascular delight!", and chicken fried steak with gravy made from animal fat drippings. At least the government has begun to get the coke machines out of our schools!
Jim
Posts: 11 | Location: traveler | Registered: 22 May 2006
