Obesity, Life Expectancy, and Our Financial Futures
The current obesity epidemic will have a critical impact on life expectancy here in the US. The New England Journal of Medicine just reported that obesity will cut between two to five years off life expectancy in the next 50 years. U.S. life expectancy is currently about 78 years. Longevity researcher Dr. Jay Olshansky said today's younger generation will have shorter and less healthy lives than their parents for the first time in modern history unless something is done to intervene.
These alarming longevity projections are obviously politically and financially charged, with consequences for issues like Social Security, pension plan payouts, health insurance and health care costs. The report comes at a time when the country is locked in a fervid debate over Social Security. All I know is that SS may not be around by the time I retire and retreat to a life filled with fishing and poker, so young people in my age group need to start planning ahead. WAAAAAY ahead. The report's authors say that
the U.S. population may be inadvertently saving Social Security by becoming more obese and dying sooner...this benefit will occur at the expense of the economy in the form of lost productivity.
You got that? Lost productivity BEFORE worker bees reach retirement and large increases in Medicare costs. Well, that's a relief. No, in all seriousness, I think the report is a bit alarmist. Nevertheless, obesity WILL continue to run rampant in our country simply because it is so consumerist in nature. Turn on the TV--we are the most marketed-to society and as a result, the most gluttonous one on the face of the earth. As a counterpoint, the calculations contrast heavily with the more sober predictions of the
Social Security Administration, which claimed that the maximum human life span would be about 100 years in the next 60 years. Hey wait a second--conflicting data from the government, so called experts, and health pundits? Why am I not surprised?
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