Today’s Adults Age 15 Years Faster Than Their Parents

[Luddly Neddite]

Today's Adults Age 15 Years Faster Than Their Parents | The Mind Unleashed

Today’s 30 year-old people are in such poor physical condition that they are 15 years “older” than their parents and grandparents when they were at the same age, states a new study.

As Dutch scientists write in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, today’s young men and women are significantly more likely to suffer from obesity, hypertension and diabetes than the older generations in their age.

This conclusion is based on monitoring 6,000 volunteers aged 20+, 30+, 40+ and 50+. As the researchers found, the new generations have poorer “metabolic health” than the older ones as they face much more metabolic problems, such as hypertension and obesity.

In fact, today’s 30 year-olds are 20% more likely to have overweight compared to the older generations. Similarly, today’s 20 year-old women are twice as likely to be obese compared to those who were at this age 10 years ago.

Similar were the findings for men and women with regard to hypertension and diabetes.

“Today’s young people are aged 15 years older with regard to metabolic health,” said lead researcher Dr. Gerben Hulsegge of the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and Environment.

He continued: “The modern young adults are doing much worse than their ancestors. The frequency of obesity in today’s 40 year-olds is similar to that in 55 year-olds of the previous generation.

This means that the younger generations are 15 years “ahead” of the older ones, which means that they have the risk of being overweight at an earlier age, with all the consequences for their health.

 

[koshergrl]

So theoretically, given this information, it's possible that Moses really did live to be 120, and Lamech to 777...

 

[DGS49]

Consider the pattern, starting with the rapid spread of in-home televisions in the 1950's.

Neighborhood social clubs gradually died out. Socializing in general declined. Rather than "doing something" people were inclined to spend hours in front of the television, just sitting there, inert.

We moved to the Suburbs where, like it or not, you can't go anywhere or do anything without getting into a car to do it. The only time we walk is when we take time to actually "go for a walk." The idea of walking or bicycling to the store, or to the library, or to church, has gone the way of the dodo bird for most of us. And heaven forbid ANY CHILD WOULD ACTUALLY WALK TO SCHOOL.

And now we have endless options of gadgets to play with, whether it is a smartphone, i-Pad, home computer, game console, or whatever. All of them have the effect of inducing people to spend less time doing things and more time doing non-things (E.g. Wii bowling) or things involving no physical activity whatsoever.

The popularity of SPECTATOR sports is at an all time high, but the numbers of people actually participating in sports (golf, bowling, tennis, running) is in slow decline. (Which is not to deny a thriving "fitness" industry and people who do all these things, but the percentage of the total population that actually does anything active as a NORMAL PART OF THEIR EVERYDAY LIVES is strikingly small).

At the same time, the food industry has honed in on food that is filling and tastes good, regardless of caloric or nutritional content. So we eat "fast food" and do...basically nothing.

Is it any wonder that a large swath of the young adult population has turned to mush?

 

[Moonglow]

I eat fast food maybe three times a month, work or am running errands and doing chores all day every day.I grew up with TV but we were not allowed to watch very much...I'm 52