Liberal Forum

*GHETTOBLASTER » 23 Jan 2025, 11:05 am » wrote: ↑

23 Jan 2025, 11:05 am

Yep.
In spite of all the chemicals, pollutants, toxic exposures, self destructive lifestyle choices ....most of us are out living our recent ancestors thanks to one medical intervention or another.
It's not that unusual to see Olden Folk at the gym nowadays.

Actually, a lot of that is likely to do with OSHA, and with Ralph Nader. 

The two things that were killing people back in the day were their jobs and their cars. OSHA handled the jobs, and Nader handled the cars. 

When you look at average life spans, you are going one level deep. There's nothing granular about the claim, "The average life span has gone up ten years. People are living longer." When you start looking a little deeper, and you control for car wrecks and industrial accidents, you'll find that things are not quite so improved. As to old folks making it to the gym these days, that MIGHT have something to do with there being gyms these days. It might also have to do with there being more leisure these days, such that people actually NEED gyms to stay active. The oldsters in todays gyms were raised by parents who joined bowling leagues or softball leagues or went sport fishing all the time or spent their leisure time water skiing and camping and such.