McUSA Drops in World Health Measures

As I have noted here earlier, the US does a horrible job of keeping its infants and children alive. Now, new data from the UNDP Human Development Report for 2005 shows that the US has dropped in comparison to the rest of the world with respect to life expectancy.

1 Japan..........82.0
2 Hong Kong......81.6
3 Iceland........80.7
4 Switzerland....80.5
5 Australia......80.3
6 Sweden.........80.2
7 Italy..........80.1
8 Canada.........80.0
9 Israel.........79.7
10 France........79.5
...
18 Cyprus........78.6
19 Luxembourg....78.5
...
27 Chile.........77.9
...
29 United States.77.4
30 Cuba..........77.3

An interpretation of this data by others suggests the following:

Health is measured by life expectancy which is a pretty robust number. Not only have other countries moved ahead of us the gap between the US and the healthiest country has increased yet again. It is now 4.6 years, and if we eradicated heart disease, our leading cause of death, it would gain us about 3.5 years and we'd still be behind. Regarding the sensitivity of the number, doing the calculations with and without the 3000 deaths of Sept 11, 2001 would only affect it by 0.01 years.

So, what we have here is an indicator that the United States is once again, going backwards with respect to the rest of the world. They are getting healthier, faster than we are. Heart disease plays a major role in our unhealthiness, which is no surprise if you simply look around at all the McDonald's manging, Taco Bell stuffing, KFC finger-licking meals you see at work and at play. In both Florida and South Carolina, it was not uncommon for me to see parents drop off their kids at preschool or daycare with a McMeal for breakfast or lunch. Bad habits are hard to break. Giving kids bad habits is criminal at worst, stupid at best. The public needs help in educating themselves and kids need help educating their parents.