Me in my 30s: "my doctor says I need to eat nothing but kale and lukewarm water or I'll die at 50" 
I see three possible avenues for this. 1. We get more sugar than them and sugar is worse than we realize. 2. They had less liberalism, and living with community and purpose was better enough to keep them going. 3. They died more and if anything was gonna make them sick they wouldn't have survived till old age so the survivorship bias is stronger.
So we just need to find a way to isolate those variables and do a regression for the data. Yeah?
ngl the recurring significant labour associated with my job has improved my physical health a lot (and mental health.....somewhat) despite my so-so habits in the rest of life
I had a job where i was walking 12 hours a day. My mental health and such tanked when I went to a job where I sit more
I think about this phenomenon a lot. some of it is certainly survivor bias, but I do think environmental contaminants and industrial food processing are cumulative and subject to some kind magnification.
of course, I never met any of my grandfathers as they died from cardiac events in their 40s before I was born. one was due to major alcoholism and the other is unknown... just a massive heart attack 20 years before I was born. the next gen of men seem to have mostly made it to their 70s, with some close calls and none of them are what I would call robust individuals. definitely higher incidence of diagnosed metabolic disorders and their comorbidities. also, a lot of late boomers just seem to ignore everything their doctors say.
I have an aunt in her 70s that can now no longer walk and has lost her vision after ignoring her doctors about controlling her diabetes for 20 years. just kept on chowing down on pasta and sugary drinks, not taking any of her medications. I do not get it at all. now all her retired siblings are having to figure out the schedule for taking care of her for the next decade or whatever.
I noticed something with boomers in my family. they all swore up and down that "when the time comes, I don't want to be a burden" but despite all the material capacity, time to plan, and infrastructure in the world, they have made absolutely zero plans to become anything but a sudden and insane burden on everyone around them, who are all working poor and can barely support themselves.
I remember all of them complaining about their parents doing it to them, and they are bending over backwards to do it even more themselves. like no understanding that they will one day stop being allowed to drive and need to plan for that day... and not try to defy it by putting their community in danger.
My great grandmother lived and worked in lumber camps for her first thirty years and then textile mills for thirty more. She smoked like a chimney and started every morning off with a screwdriver. She lived into her mid 90s. Sometimes I wonder if I should be more like her.
My grandpa would take a swig of port wine every morning. I don't want to defend functioning alcoholism, mind you. i've worked enough jobs where I was the only sober guy present.
Maybe it was all the lead in the air?
Let's get back to leaded gasoline!!!!
See the problem was tetraethyl lead, it'll be healthy if we just chuck a block of lead in the gas tank.
Oh man, you reminded me of the existence of Thomas Midgley Jr., just one of the absolute guys of all time. That he died in his own Wallace-and-Gromit-like bed contraption is just the perfect end for him.
If plastics last forever, and I am full of microplastics, doesn't that mean I will last forever?
"Mr. Burns, you are the sickest man in the United States” - but there are too many germs and they all cancel each other out."
