Social Security age increase is scary news for America. Well for a majority of the population, it all depends on your perception! According to the government agency CDC, Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, life expectancy was 77.7 in 2006. A nice increase of 36% since 1929. Not bad America. We have to take in consideration the rapid growth in healthcare, especially with diagnosis and treatment. Medical equipment has improved proactive diagnosis of life threatening situations. I remember in the early 80's watching my mother battle cancer. At the time, doctors and scientist were pioneers in understanding cancer and treatments were trial and error. With that knowledge we can pretty much say the medical field has played a major role in the large increase in life expectancy. It's hard to give much credit to the population as it didn't have much to do with the daily lifestyle.
Over the next few years it will be interesting to see if life expectancy has peaked. Right now people living past their 80's experienced the Great Depression and World War II. That generation did not over eat or over buy as they experienced rationing of goods during the two devastating periods in history. Basically their waist lines matched their life experiences between the late 1920's through mid 1940's. In a way, the life struggles turned into natural preventive medicine. I am not saying there were not obese people during the Great Depression generation, of course if they were overweight they were probably greedy as communities did a better job working together in the past compared to today.
Child obesity the statistics are more terrifying than on can imagine. In 1980's child obesity was 6.5% compared to 19.6% in 2008 for 6 to 11 year olds. The percentage for 12 to 19 year olds increased 5.0% to 18.1%. Only a 200% increase, nothing too alarming.
Child Obesity - CDC
Where is this blog going? If we use the stats provided by the government, trends would tell us that there is a high possibility that health and life expectancy will decline at a furious rate in the next 10 to 15 years. Maybe preventive medicine has made society lazy. In the next couple of decades we are not going to be fighting a battle against cancer and heart disease, its going to be going to battle against high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity. etc.... We already do but in the future it will be at an increased rate. These symptoms will cause high stress on vital organs. Jobs in the medical field are going to be in high demand.
In summary, go ahead and increase the Social Security age to 68 or 69. Most of the population will have passed on from this life cycle and there will be plenty of money left for those people who take care of themselves. And yes I do understand that if you do cardio and eat healthy it doesn't give you superman powers against cancer and life threatening diseases. Exercise and eating healthy does decrease the odds which is a fact.
Have a great day! I'm out the door to jog four miles, pick up my friend Eric from the Atlanta airport, and do some bike riding later.
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