This is completely empirical and based on conversations with people who, like me, immigrated to the US. I think it’s lifestyle: The environment we came from nat

This is completely empirical and based on conversations with people who, like me, immigrated to the US. I think it’s lifestyle: The environment we came from naturally encouraged walking and physical activity. Diets were also healthier. Here in the US, at least in the Midwest, residential and commercial layouts are completely car centric, there are few places where it’s more convenient to just walk. In contrast, in more densely populated cities, like the ones me and my friends came from, a combination of factors, like traffic, lack of parking spaces and availability of sidewalks makes it way easier to just walk to places. Regarding food, I think due to the labor/capital balance of the US, people spend way less time cooking from scratch. It’s funny that many recipes have steps of the like of “mix a can of that” or “stir half a packet of such”. I don’t think the effect in health is as much when compared to lack of physical activity, but I’m convinced it’s a factor. I’m convinced that for those who have access to it, medical care in the US is one of the best, if not the best in the world. But there is only so much that can be done in a medical setting to offset detrimental lifestyle patterns. To me, that is one of the overlooked factors when comparing life expectancy across nations as a measure of the medical system performance. Ceteris Paribus.