Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

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> The Oxford University research found that moderate obesity, which is now common, reduces life expectancy by about 3 years, and that severe obesity, which is still uncommon, can shorten a person's life by 10 years. This 10 year loss is equal to the effects of lifelong smoking.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2009-03-18-moderate-obesity-takes-...

> According to the CDC, 9.4% of adults in the United States were severely obese between August 2021 and August 2023. This is higher for women (12.1%) than men (6.7%). The prevalence of severe obesity varies by age group, with the highest rates in adults aged 40–59 (12.0%)

Only 9.4% of people are severely obese. Moderately obese people have only a ~4% shorter life-span than healthy weight individuals - much of which can probably be attributed to other lifestyle issues besides simply being overweight.

This will move the needle, but I doubt as much as you think.

There's a lot more smokers than there are severely obese people.

>There's a lot more smokers than there are severely obese people.

Huh, I was going to argue this, but you're right (in the US). 19.5% of the population smokes, so there's about twice as many smokers as severely obese people.

I was sure it had dropped to 5-10%. I guess I'm in a bubble (of fresh air).

Kind of a tangent but I think a big part of the explanation for declining life expectancy is hiding here in plain sight.

Since everyone knows smoking is bad for a long time now, we’re going to eventually need to categorize stuff like lung-cancer as a death of despair, similar to other deaths caused by alcoholism, opioids, or suicide.

A lot of people who otherwise might quit smoking are probably looking at impossible dreams of home ownership or retirement, and thinking consciously or unconsciously that there is more dignity in a death at 50-60ish than one at 80ish when you’re unemployable and the thin promises of social safety nets have fallen through.

Smoking (or other high risk activities) might be a dirty habit but it’s still more socially acceptable than suicide.

That's a bleak view. I doubt a substantial percentage of smokers are smoking specifically to die sooner.

Most of them are smoking primarily because they're addicted.

A few of them actually like smoking.

Dying sooner is certainly not why they started.. rather the bleakness of outlook is a (fairly rational) reason why they don’t quit.

If obesity is supposed to be the other main candidate for why life expectancy is down, you can do a similar analysis there. Is life really good enough to prolong or attempt to improve for people that are in at-risk categories? That’s the question people are looking at when they choose to move towards or away from self-care. For someone who makes minimum wage and already has to choose between paying for a date or paying for rent, it makes less sense for them to care much about losing weight, because it makes a bad life longer but won’t help their love life.

This is how practically all population-level analysis of health is just economics in disguise, even without directly looking at costs of medicine/services

I think your hypothesis is correct but your reasoning is wrong. Few people are morbid enough to think "Oh my life sucks so why bother looking after myself". But if you're constantly stressed because you're struggling in life, small indulgences like smoking, alcohol and fast food/sugar are a lot harder to resist as they provide a much needed outlet/release.

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