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Only 2.7% of all adults had all 4 healthy lifestyle characteristics
- guard-of-terra 11y agoIMO this looks more like shaming the whole adult population. Guess what - we're already under stress and shaming us even more will only cause more unhealthy behavior trying to eat away/smoke away/drink away that stress. Just stop.
- charlesism 11y agoWhat incentive would the Mayo Clinic have to publish data that Americans are generally healthy?
- nibnib 11y agoThey could take credit for it.
- charlesism 11y agoThey could, but what newspaper is going to report that press release?
- wimagguc 11y agoNewspapers, by definition, cover reports that are newsworthy. "People are all healthy" would be the more surprising headline for any paper today, so I would assume that would be picked up at least as well.
- charlesism 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- nibnib 11y agoFrom their POV, does it matter? The clinic doesn't exist to get column inches as far as I can tell.
- charlesism 11y agoIf they didn't want money, for better or for worse, they wouldn't ask for it: https://philanthropy.mayoclinic.org/donatemc https://philanthropy.mayoclinic.org/donatemc $4.27 billion, pretty good for a non-profit: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/14/charity-10_Mayo-Clinic_CH0108.html http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/14/charity-10_Mayo-Clinic_C... I'm not saying they don't use the money to help people. I am saying that, in regard to this article on HN, it's the finding one would expect.
- travisby 11y agobeing healthy is hard so let's not talk about it, or just move the goal post of healthy?
- guard-of-terra 11y agoThat kind of talk is worse than no talk at all.
- djhn 11y agoHow do you make a child know himself? You surround him with mirrors. "This is what everyone else sees when you do what you do. This is who everyone thinks you are." You cause him to be tested: this is the kind of person you are, you are good at this but not that. This other person is better than you at this, but not better than you at that. These are the limits by which you are defined. If you don't do this to a child, you get a narcissist. If you do this on a large scale, you get.. well, America. (Paraphrasing the satirical blog thelastpsychiatrist.com)
- guard-of-terra 11y agoAdults are not your children and also they don't owe anything to you. You get who you get.
- reifnir 11y agoIf less than 10% of people have "normal" body fat in the study, is it really normal? Perhaps that should have been identified as healthy body fat.
- haywirez 11y agoMost people are simply too fat and eat too much. Coming from Europe, it often baffles me what Americans consider "normal". Edit: not to say it also isn't a problem here/worldwide, it's been getting noticeably worse over time.
- reifnir 11y agoIf healthy is atypical and unexpected in a population, then it isn't normal. I'm pedantically suggesting that healthy is currently the abnormal condition (and one that clearly needs remediation).
- akerro 11y agoIt's easier to change definition of "normal" than start working out, right?
- haywirez 11y agoWhile I would bet that the general idea that few people lead healthy lifestyles is correct, the study is somewhat misleading, given how they measured the "healthy" amount of physical activity [0]: "While attending the MEC, participants were instructed to wear an ActiGraph 7164 accelerometer (ActiGraph LLC) during all activities except water-based activities and while sleeping. The accelerometer measured the frequency, intensity, and duration of physical activity by generating an activity count proportional to the measured acceleration." and dietary behavior [1]: "Data from the Dietary Data Collection system were used to compute a Healthy Eating Index (HEI) score for each study participant. The HEI-2005 [2] was developed by the US Department of Agriculture as an indicator of dietary quality. The HEI has 12 components (total fruit; whole fruit; total vegetable; dark green, orange vegetable and legumes; total grain; whole grain; milk; meat and beans; oil; saturated fats; sodium; and calories from solid fats, alcoholic beverages, and added sugars), with each component individually scored and a maximum total score of 100. A higher score reflects closer adherence to the dietary guidelines for Americans." I would guess the number is not higher than the 5-10% range, but 2,7% seems too low. Let's say you swim 5x a week and follow a ketogenic/low-carb diet, the study would have you classified as unhealthy. The HEI-2005 [2] is already outdated (revised in 2010) and it is probably not the "optimal" diet either. [0] http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)00043-4/fulltext#sec1.3 http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)0... [1] http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)00043-4/fulltext#sec1.2 http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)0... [2] http://epi.grants.cancer.gov/hei/2005/ http://epi.grants.cancer.gov/hei/2005/
- forgetsusername 11y ago>the study is somewhat misleading, given how they measured the "healthy" How is it "misleading" when they clearly explain the definition of their measures?
- TheBeardKing 11y agoI'd go with "inaccurate" then.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
- has2k1 11y agoWhat I would like to find out is; What the survival rate / life expectancy is for those 2.7% vs the rest of the population?
- djhn 11y agoIt's shocking, especially considering that failing two of those tests initially requires deliberate effort (smoking and bodyfat), even if after this point reversal is far more complicated and difficult. Another two, daily activity and healthy food, have also become "non-default" behaviour only in the past couple of decades. Consider that increases in free time (for activity) and the fact that eating a healthy diet has never been as easy or less costly than now. Does anyone have similar data for other countries, cultures or regions?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sethammons 11y agoWhy do you say that eating healthy has never been less costly? Easy, maybe (the Internet makes information easier to find and global trade and larger super markets make it potentially easier to find), but I don't feel that healthy is less costly. Annecdata: I recall that vegetables and healthier breakfast cereals were cheaper than junk foods in the 80's. Now, due to mostly demand, it seems to have flipped. Add to that that the overall growth in the price of food had outpaced the the growth in household income over the last three decades (on mobile, hard to find a source), and I begin to understand how my mostly healthy groceries take up such a large percent of my income. And if we think of it in terms of healthy vs unhealthy foods and cost, I could save a lot of money by only feeding the family pasta or processed foods. Healthy foods costs more than unhealthy foods (excluding potential health issues).
- djhn 11y agoI'm open to being wrong. This would be an interesting point to research as an economist. You're right in that in the past 50 years unhealthy food has become relatively cheaper compared to healthy food. My thought was comparing the cost of a particular balance of nutritional value from now, to past centuries and millennia. Maybe it doesn't hold for the economic "golden years" in America from 1950-1970. My completely arbitrary estimate is that total food costs as a percentage of total household consumption has plummeted from something like 40-50% to about 2-5%. Of course, there are regional differences. At the moment, in the developing world getting enough protein is a challenge. For many historically meat was prohibitively expensive. But it wasn't so for people close to hunting or fishing industries.
- noobie 11y agoWhat are these characteristics?
- rejschaap 11y agoFrom the article: * Measurement of Physical Activity * Measurement of Dietary Behavior/Healthy Eating Index * Measurement of Smoking Status * Measurement of Body Fat Percentage I would say number 4 is a bit odd, since it depends on the other ones. But I guess it is easy to measure.
- wimagguc 11y agoMy masseuse said during massage yesterday: "Relax! If you can't relax, that's not good for you." That's not much help to get relaxed, you can imagine, but nor is the "you're doing it all wrong" in these studies. I bet that most of these people do realise that their lifestyle isn't all healthy, but improvement is difficult with all the noise around. Which sports should you do, how often is optimal? Which diet is the best one? Is rice healthy at all? Ask any of these questions from two "health experts", and feel free leave the scene: they will still be debating the following day.
- djhn 11y ago1. Don't smoke, it causes deadly diseases. 2. Don't be immobile and stationary all day. 3. Don't buy food that comes in a plastic wrap or a cardboard box. Make your own from primary ingredients (vegetables, meats, grains). You are talking about details. This study, if taken at face value, suggests people are ignoring the obvious fundamentals.
- afarrell 11y agoYou've somewhat contradicted yourself with #3. Many primary ingredients are sold in cardboard or plastic packaging. Also, #3 requires enough wealth to have the time to spend on it.
- adrianN 11y agoPreparing somewhat healthy food takes a few hours a week. It's not so hard that you need to be particularly wealthy to do it.
- afarrell 11y agoYou don't need to be particularly wealthy, but it does require you to allocate: * Fridge & pantry space for ingredients. This is significantly easier if you are not splitting that space with 2 roommates. * Time and Executive Function to keep track of what you need to shop for. This is significantly easier if you spend $5 on an app like Paprika. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paprika-recipe-manager-for/id406732590?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paprika-recipe-manager-for/i... * Money to spend on cooking tools. This is significantly easier if you have friend who also cook and can recommend things. * Time and skill to spend organizing your kitchen so that you can work reasonably efficiently. * Time and patience to spend doing a skill poorly because you are learning. This is made easier if you have a snack before you cook dinner because trying to do an unfamiliar multi-threaded task is harder when you are hungry. * Money to spend on ordering food to be delivered when you fuck something up. * Time to spend going to the grocery store more frequently for fresher ingredients. This is significantly easier if you own a car or are willing to pay higher rent to live near a grocery store. * Time to spend actually doing both the cooking and cleaning. All of this is doable on a software engineer salary, but it does require making a deliberate decision to allocate resources.
- NLips 11y agoThe study's method by definition places an upper limit of 40% of the population meeting all 4 requirements: "Using the average of the 2-day HEI scores, participants at or above the 60th percentile (ie, top 40%) of HEI scores in the population were categorized as adhering to the dietary guidelines for consuming a healthy diet." Regardless of how healthily people do or don't eat, you only have the 'healthy-diet' characteristic if you're in the top 40%.
- ryanwaggoner 11y agoI'd be shocked if the 60th percentile American diet is healthy, for any reasonable definition.
- tim333 11y agoTheir requirement for exercise was over two and half hours / week of "moderate to vigorous physical activity" which I guess is running or similar. I suspect that alone disqualified a good chunk of people.
- dspillett 11y agoIIRC a brisk walk (faster than natural walking pace, but certainly not a jog) qualifies as moderate exercise in many studies. If that is so here then 2.5 hours is not nearly as difficult to achieve as you might otherwise think. Caveat: I've not read the report so I don't know if they explicitly define what they mean by "moderate".
- rcgs 11y agoIt's a shame really. 2.5hrs a week isn't a huge commitment, especially if you're able to work it into your day, e.g. commuting to work.