and yet somehow that world seemed more healthy than today's
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/data-finder.htm?&subject=Life%2...
The main reason for the increase there is a reduction in child mortality, not an increase in overall healthiness. Ironically, one of the main factors improving the adult population statistics is the decrease in smoking.
But look at something like HALE (Healthy Life Expectancy from WHO[1]) that's much lower and is currently decreasing.
I wonder though if we didn't trade the low-hanging fruit of lung cancer for the kinds of things that kill us now. I won't argue that we didn't add a decade to our average lifespan, but it does seem our lives have become more sedentary than they were. (Mine certainly has—but then I'm also forty-plus years older, ha ha.)
I wonder how 70's man and 70's woman fared who didn't smoke or live with a smoker—if you compared just that group with modern man and woman.
As for people pointing at lifespans for the healthy part, how much of the change is systemic use of anticoagulants? And of course less tobacco, but I wouldn't rush to say people are in much better shape now.