[fruser1]

RFK Jr said folks were a lot healthier when his uncle was prez.

[ClearCase_guy]

Along those lines, people used to be thin. A big problem today is obesity. Why are so many people obese? Lots of reasons: seed oils, High fructose corn syrup, lots of other stuff.

But also, people who smoke tend to be thinner. We traded smoking for obesity. Good trade? [shrug] Not my place to say.

What I will say is that the US government pretty much made tobacco illegal without making tobacco illegal. So many little laws and taxes trying to ban that substance while not actually banning that substance. I think that is an awful precedent. It’s a type of lawfare against citizens, punishing people for doing things that aren’t quite illegal.

[Wallace T.]

The food in the 1960s had fewer additives and far more people ate home cooked food. Fast food was there, but fried chicken and French fries were fried in lard or beef tallow and not seed oils. Most livestock were pasture raised as the feedlot industry was in its infancy.

Offsetting that advantage is the fact that a majority of adults smoked and lung cancer and emphysema were far more common. Lung cancer deaths peaked in the early 1990s and have declined ever since, as fewer Baby Boomers and succeeding generations took up smoking compared with the Silent and GI (Greatest) Generations. The medical industry has made great advances in cardiology. As a result, the average life expectancy in America increased from 66.7 years in 1960 to 78.9 years in 2020.

[Wallace T.]

The food in the 1960s had fewer additives and far more people ate home cooked food. Fast food was there, but fried chicken and French fries were fried in lard or beef tallow and not seed oils. Most livestock were pasture raised as the feedlot industry was in its infancy.

Offsetting that advantage is the fact that a majority of adults smoked and lung cancer and emphysema were far more common. Lung cancer deaths peaked in the early 1990s and have declined ever since, as fewer Baby Boomers and succeeding generations took up smoking compared with the Silent and GI (Greatest) Generations. The medical industry has made great advances in cardiology. As a result, the average life expectancy in America increased from 66.7 years in 1960 to 78.9 years in 2020.