5 ms·

> Heart disease and cancer accounted for 56% of deaths among these 15 causes, but together they received just 7% of the media coverage. Other chronic issues, su

> Heart disease and cancer accounted for 56% of deaths among these 15 causes, but together they received just 7% of the media coverage. Other chronic issues, such as strokes, respiratory problems, diabetes, and kidney and liver disease, were also very underrepresented in the news. Almost everybody will eventually die from one of this laundry list of items if they get old enough, regardless of where they live. And regarding reporting, how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Or are you supposed to cover every heart attack on a news story? Whereas murders and school shootings and such, can each have their own, big or small story. At worst, the US has like 2x the obesity rate (and related deaths) compared to a place like Germany or France. But there's hardly any scarcity of news reports around health issues like obesity, or cancer either. Health coverage, health scares, health influencing, health fads, health supplements, diets, etc, are a trillion dollar industry. Not all countries have such big homicide rates - most western countries have like 1/5th or less. And in most western countries a "school shooting" is nothing a person should even have to think or plan about, and schools don't ever need metal detectors, or to have to plan around such things.

majirdulb 1y ago
Otherwise agree, but >And in most western countries a "school shooting" is nothing a person should even have to think or plan about, and schools don't ever need metal detectors, or to have to plan around such things. School shootings are still very much a thing where I live (finland), last one being just last year. A country with no guns and supposed to be one of the happiest in the world still experiences them
- showsover 1y ago
  The one before that was in 2008, so a good 16 years between the two. I.e. not something people ever have to think about.
  - jojobas 1y ago
    All "active shootings" (mostly not school shootings) in the US kill only about twice as many people per year as lightning strikes. Pretty sure not many people think about those.
    - physicsguy 1y ago
      There's not really anything that can be done about lightning strikes.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        There is, it's just that we've been doing it for so long that it's gone from being a decorative motif to a boring and ugly background feature of the architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod The metal shell of most vehicles also protect the occupants from lightning strikes.
        physicsguy 1y ago
        Sure but most people end up getting killed when walking/hiking across golf courses and fields and things in storms.
        coldtea 1y ago
        Nothing to be done about the lighting strikes that kill people - exposed, in nature, doing stupid shit during storms. Not about those in cities averted by lighting rods.
        quickthrowman 1y ago
        A lightning protection system only protects the building and the equipment attached to it. I suppose you could make an argument that it protects occupants from fires caused by lightning strikes, but it’s there to protect the building and equipment first and foremost. Fun fact: lightning rods are called air terminals.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      It's wild that mass murder is just treated like weather over there. Occasional rain of lead.
- ifwinterco 1y ago
  I see this narrative a lot from Americans who often hold the EU/Europe (also often conflated when they're not the same thing) as some kind of utopia when it comes to stuff like that. In reality, while it is nowhere near as bad as in the US, but there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe. Guns are still guns and humans are still humans unfortunately
  - sofixa 1y ago
    > there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe Once a decade at most in most countries. Usually less than that. Compared to what in the US, once a month? Yes, guns are still guns and humans are still humans, but it's not nearly comparable.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      You need to compare the whole of Europe (EU, EEA, whatever) to be roughly comparrable to "the US" Finland is about the same size of say Minnesota, and Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August
      - ifwinterco 1y ago
        Exactly, across the whole of Europe it's more than once a decade. Definitely not as bad as the US though, I acknowledge that, but people tend to paint it in black and white terms when the reality is messier
        close04 1y ago
        If this map [0] is accurate, in the past ~60 years Europe had 166 school shootings while the US had 2980. That's 18x more shootings in the US compared to Europe. Shootings per million people 0.22 in Europe vs. 8.68 for the US, 40x difference. Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as an organized terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]). Your comment is definitely trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort. [0] https://brilliantmaps.com/school-shooting-maps/ https://brilliantmaps.com/school-shooting-maps/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege
- Adrox 1y ago
  "A country with no gun". Finland is in top 10 guns per capita in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
  - wasabi991011 1y ago
    Not to mention, number 2 in firearms per household (different stat because it is independent of the size of a household's arsenal). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_gun...
- lz400 1y ago
  You guys had a shooting last year, but school shootings in the US average to ~1 per day
  - cudgy 1y ago
    Finland be a wee bit smaller than the US and 1 per day in US is a huge exaggeration. 13 total in US in 2024 … you were only off by 1,300% though. Also, Finland has the population of 1/2 of Los Angeles. Wow
    - lz400 1y ago
      >School shootings in 2024 dipped slightly from the year before, but the 330 school shootings recorded last year still mark the second-highest number since 1966 https://www.k12dive.com/news/school-shootings-2024-near-record-high-2025-predictions/736590/ https://www.k12dive.com/news/school-shootings-2024-near-reco...
      - cudgy 1y ago
        Believe this article is quoting the total number of students shot not the total number of incidents as the numbers are much higher than any other statistics that I’ve seen from more reputable sites.
        lz400 1y ago
        That's not correct. It counts the total number of school shootings. Some of those shootings had no victims. The total of students shot is also provided with some more elaboration with charts here. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2024-in-numbers/104734714 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2... As you can see your number of 13 makes no sense, there were 200-300 students shot (!)
  - pkroll 1y ago
    Mass shootings in the US, are a little over 1 a day. School shootings are a subset, and as cudgy says, so far 13 this year.
- coldtea 1y ago
  Hardly "no guns" though: "In Finland, approximately 12% of the population owns firearms, with around 650,000 people holding at least one permit for about 1.5 million registered firearms".
- Mashimo 1y ago
  When I visited my friend in Finland, we got to an outdoor range to shoot with AK-47 clones (in 5.56 and something bigger) and shotguns with slugs. No instructor need. Was enough that he had a license. Fun times. Next day we drove with a tank through a forest. Compared to other EU countries Finland is pretty easy going when it comes to guns.
- Razengan 1y ago
  > A country with no guns and supposed to be one of the happiest in the world still experiences them Do you know the difference between 1% and 99%? Once every 10 years vs. once every year? A desert with a single tree vs. a forest with a dead tree, a lake on a continent vs. an island in the ocean.. are those the same things to you?
jojobas 1y ago
The causes should be ranked not by body count/percentages, but rather in years of life taken compared to life expectancy. If someone lived to 105 years it doesn't really matter what killed him, if it's at 30 it does.
- barnabee 1y ago
  I’d love to apply the same logic to voting and weight votes by how long the voter is expected to have to deal with the consequences.
  - cudgy 1y ago
    So the people with the least amount of experience would be making all the decisions? You must be a young person.
    - barnabee 1y ago
      Not as young as I was when I voted in my first election, about 25 years ago ;) You assume young people will vote for other people like them rather than whoever they think would actually run the country best for the long term? You must be an old person.
      - cudgy 1y ago
        No, I’m old enough to understand that people in different age groups have different mentalities. Sure, there are 18-year-olds that are mature beyond their years to the extent that they are willing to consider the interest of older people, but it’s not the norm.
        wholinator2 1y ago
        Its funny cause the mood among the young people is that the American government is entirely run by geriatrics for other 50+ people. I'm sure they'd be very happy with better representation, though apparently not enough to get them to actually vote for it
Rebuff5007 1y ago
What exactly is the point you are making? It is very reasonable to think that our attention (in the form of editorialized reporting, or funded initiatives) is being spent on actual material problems affecting most people, and this article is claiming this is a gap here... which I, and maybe many others think is valuable. > how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Until its less of a problem? Like any difficult problem in the world, you can keep coming at it from different ways, use the latest / most effective tools of the day, look for new opportunities, etc, etc.
- coldtea 1y ago
  >What exactly is the point you are making? 1- That "cancer/strokes/heart problems" happens is hardly news, despite "killing more people" than other things reported. Especially since almost everybody old enough eventually suffers such health problems. 2- Despite their little newsorthiness, they're still covered in a big way, and there are huge industries around their awareness. 3- Homicide is inherently more newsworthy than "people get heart attacks". And even more important to cover where those crimes happen disproportionately compared to other comparable countries. > Until its less of a problem? As if the problem with people being fat is that there's not enough reporting of them being fat?
  - Rebuff5007 1y ago
    I still don't get what you think is "newsworthy", or what "should" be reported on. Why is homicide inherently more newsworthy than "people get heart attacks"? It completely depends on how much homicide is happening, how many heart attacks are happening, and what we as a society think is reasonable for either fatality. Given how few people are dying with homicides, how many people are dying from a preventable disease -- which is what the main article here says -- I think there can absolutely more attention put on the preventable disease. Particularly at a moment in time when funding for healthcare by the government is being dramatically reduced.
    - aarond0623 1y ago
      > I still don't get what you think is "newsworthy", or what "should" be reported on. That people die from heart disease and cancer, especially when they get older, is common knowledge. That's what makes it less newsworthy versus a local homicide story that is not common knowledge.
noisy_boy 1y ago
> And regarding reporting, how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Or are you supposed to cover every heart attack on a news story? No, but you can spend a bit more time on coverage of new findings/research regarding the causes, initiatives and scientific progress towards treatment etc. Sure it isn't sexy but I think there is enough sensationalism to go around to fund some sensible reporting.
- Konnstann 1y ago
  The causes of obesity in the US are well known and reported on, just not as "health" pieces. Food deserts, car-centric infrastructure, poor work-life balance, rising costs of groceries, low access to preventative screens. The only novel research in my opinion would deal with micro plastics and the effect they have on hormones.
nmz 1y ago
You can do this in the news, basically everything you do in finance is look at charts and see trends going up or down, everyone can see it and it informs way more than a story, people do want it, What I wouldn't give for an itemized table of the goings on in my country/city/county but I don't think the government itself wants that, its why they refuse audits, nobody but the ones high up know what the trends actually are, if things are actually improving or not, we are all blind trying to see and the news is there to extract revenue from speculation not from real data. (And yes I'm aware chartr exists)
johnnyanmac 1y ago
>how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat" Until it's fixed. I don't think I need to tell you how many times they will write "[politician bad] regardless of the truth to it. >there's hardly any scarcity of news reports around health issues like obesity, or cancer either. Follow the money. Obesity is double, but" fitness" is a billion dollar industry. The message is never "eat less calories and stop subsidizing high fructose corn syrup", it's "buy this new MAGIC pill" or "get swole at the gym near you for $50/month (don't worry you can't cancel easily)" or "try this new diet plan with food we send to you". Cancee is definitely more news hype though. Any little breadcrumb of progress is another package of "have we finally cracked the code to cancer?!" (Betteridge's law applies here). It is exciting stuff but not how the news frames it.
GuB-42 1y ago
> And regarding reporting, how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Or are you supposed to cover every heart attack on a news story? The article addresses your point with: "A newspaper that constantly covers heart disease and kidney failure would be a boring one that soon goes out of business." The last paragraph is about whether or not the bias matters, and I find the conclusion particularly interesting: "But there’s one final reason why this bias matters. It makes it hard for us to understand how causes of death are changing over time."

majirdulb 1y ago

Otherwise agree, but >And in most western countries a "school shooting" is nothing a person should even have to think or plan about, and schools don't ever need metal detectors, or to have to plan around such things. School shootings are still very much a thing where I live (finland), last one being just last year. A country with no guns and supposed to be one of the happiest in the world still experiences them

showsover 1y ago
The one before that was in 2008, so a good 16 years between the two. I.e. not something people ever have to think about.
- jojobas 1y ago
  All "active shootings" (mostly not school shootings) in the US kill only about twice as many people per year as lightning strikes. Pretty sure not many people think about those.
  - physicsguy 1y ago
    There's not really anything that can be done about lightning strikes.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      There is, it's just that we've been doing it for so long that it's gone from being a decorative motif to a boring and ugly background feature of the architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod The metal shell of most vehicles also protect the occupants from lightning strikes.
      - physicsguy 1y ago
        Sure but most people end up getting killed when walking/hiking across golf courses and fields and things in storms.
      - coldtea 1y ago
        Nothing to be done about the lighting strikes that kill people - exposed, in nature, doing stupid shit during storms. Not about those in cities averted by lighting rods.
      - quickthrowman 1y ago
        A lightning protection system only protects the building and the equipment attached to it. I suppose you could make an argument that it protects occupants from fires caused by lightning strikes, but it’s there to protect the building and equipment first and foremost. Fun fact: lightning rods are called air terminals.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    It's wild that mass murder is just treated like weather over there. Occasional rain of lead.
ifwinterco 1y ago
I see this narrative a lot from Americans who often hold the EU/Europe (also often conflated when they're not the same thing) as some kind of utopia when it comes to stuff like that. In reality, while it is nowhere near as bad as in the US, but there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe. Guns are still guns and humans are still humans unfortunately
- sofixa 1y ago
  > there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe Once a decade at most in most countries. Usually less than that. Compared to what in the US, once a month? Yes, guns are still guns and humans are still humans, but it's not nearly comparable.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    You need to compare the whole of Europe (EU, EEA, whatever) to be roughly comparrable to "the US" Finland is about the same size of say Minnesota, and Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August
    - ifwinterco 1y ago
      Exactly, across the whole of Europe it's more than once a decade. Definitely not as bad as the US though, I acknowledge that, but people tend to paint it in black and white terms when the reality is messier
      - close04 1y ago
        If this map [0] is accurate, in the past ~60 years Europe had 166 school shootings while the US had 2980. That's 18x more shootings in the US compared to Europe. Shootings per million people 0.22 in Europe vs. 8.68 for the US, 40x difference. Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as an organized terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]). Your comment is definitely trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort. [0] https://brilliantmaps.com/school-shooting-maps/ https://brilliantmaps.com/school-shooting-maps/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege
Adrox 1y ago
"A country with no gun". Finland is in top 10 guns per capita in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
- wasabi991011 1y ago
  Not to mention, number 2 in firearms per household (different stat because it is independent of the size of a household's arsenal). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_gun...
lz400 1y ago
You guys had a shooting last year, but school shootings in the US average to ~1 per day
- cudgy 1y ago
  Finland be a wee bit smaller than the US and 1 per day in US is a huge exaggeration. 13 total in US in 2024 … you were only off by 1,300% though. Also, Finland has the population of 1/2 of Los Angeles. Wow
  - lz400 1y ago
    >School shootings in 2024 dipped slightly from the year before, but the 330 school shootings recorded last year still mark the second-highest number since 1966 https://www.k12dive.com/news/school-shootings-2024-near-record-high-2025-predictions/736590/ https://www.k12dive.com/news/school-shootings-2024-near-reco...
    - cudgy 1y ago
      Believe this article is quoting the total number of students shot not the total number of incidents as the numbers are much higher than any other statistics that I’ve seen from more reputable sites.
      - lz400 1y ago
        That's not correct. It counts the total number of school shootings. Some of those shootings had no victims. The total of students shot is also provided with some more elaboration with charts here. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2024-in-numbers/104734714 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2... As you can see your number of 13 makes no sense, there were 200-300 students shot (!)
- pkroll 1y ago
  Mass shootings in the US, are a little over 1 a day. School shootings are a subset, and as cudgy says, so far 13 this year.
coldtea 1y ago
Hardly "no guns" though: "In Finland, approximately 12% of the population owns firearms, with around 650,000 people holding at least one permit for about 1.5 million registered firearms".
Mashimo 1y ago
When I visited my friend in Finland, we got to an outdoor range to shoot with AK-47 clones (in 5.56 and something bigger) and shotguns with slugs. No instructor need. Was enough that he had a license. Fun times. Next day we drove with a tank through a forest. Compared to other EU countries Finland is pretty easy going when it comes to guns.
Razengan 1y ago
> A country with no guns and supposed to be one of the happiest in the world still experiences them Do you know the difference between 1% and 99%? Once every 10 years vs. once every year? A desert with a single tree vs. a forest with a dead tree, a lake on a continent vs. an island in the ocean.. are those the same things to you?

jojobas 1y ago

The causes should be ranked not by body count/percentages, but rather in years of life taken compared to life expectancy. If someone lived to 105 years it doesn't really matter what killed him, if it's at 30 it does.

barnabee 1y ago
I’d love to apply the same logic to voting and weight votes by how long the voter is expected to have to deal with the consequences.
- cudgy 1y ago
  So the people with the least amount of experience would be making all the decisions? You must be a young person.
  - barnabee 1y ago
    Not as young as I was when I voted in my first election, about 25 years ago ;) You assume young people will vote for other people like them rather than whoever they think would actually run the country best for the long term? You must be an old person.
    - cudgy 1y ago
      No, I’m old enough to understand that people in different age groups have different mentalities. Sure, there are 18-year-olds that are mature beyond their years to the extent that they are willing to consider the interest of older people, but it’s not the norm.
      - wholinator2 1y ago
        Its funny cause the mood among the young people is that the American government is entirely run by geriatrics for other 50+ people. I'm sure they'd be very happy with better representation, though apparently not enough to get them to actually vote for it

Rebuff5007 1y ago

What exactly is the point you are making? It is very reasonable to think that our attention (in the form of editorialized reporting, or funded initiatives) is being spent on actual material problems affecting most people, and this article is claiming this is a gap here... which I, and maybe many others think is valuable. > how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Until its less of a problem? Like any difficult problem in the world, you can keep coming at it from different ways, use the latest / most effective tools of the day, look for new opportunities, etc, etc.

coldtea 1y ago
>What exactly is the point you are making? 1- That "cancer/strokes/heart problems" happens is hardly news, despite "killing more people" than other things reported. Especially since almost everybody old enough eventually suffers such health problems. 2- Despite their little newsorthiness, they're still covered in a big way, and there are huge industries around their awareness. 3- Homicide is inherently more newsworthy than "people get heart attacks". And even more important to cover where those crimes happen disproportionately compared to other comparable countries. > Until its less of a problem? As if the problem with people being fat is that there's not enough reporting of them being fat?
- Rebuff5007 1y ago
  I still don't get what you think is "newsworthy", or what "should" be reported on. Why is homicide inherently more newsworthy than "people get heart attacks"? It completely depends on how much homicide is happening, how many heart attacks are happening, and what we as a society think is reasonable for either fatality. Given how few people are dying with homicides, how many people are dying from a preventable disease -- which is what the main article here says -- I think there can absolutely more attention put on the preventable disease. Particularly at a moment in time when funding for healthcare by the government is being dramatically reduced.
  - aarond0623 1y ago
    > I still don't get what you think is "newsworthy", or what "should" be reported on. That people die from heart disease and cancer, especially when they get older, is common knowledge. That's what makes it less newsworthy versus a local homicide story that is not common knowledge.

noisy_boy 1y ago

> And regarding reporting, how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Or are you supposed to cover every heart attack on a news story? No, but you can spend a bit more time on coverage of new findings/research regarding the causes, initiatives and scientific progress towards treatment etc. Sure it isn't sexy but I think there is enough sensationalism to go around to fund some sensible reporting.

Konnstann 1y ago
The causes of obesity in the US are well known and reported on, just not as "health" pieces. Food deserts, car-centric infrastructure, poor work-life balance, rising costs of groceries, low access to preventative screens. The only novel research in my opinion would deal with micro plastics and the effect they have on hormones.

nmz 1y ago

You can do this in the news, basically everything you do in finance is look at charts and see trends going up or down, everyone can see it and it informs way more than a story, people do want it, What I wouldn't give for an itemized table of the goings on in my country/city/county but I don't think the government itself wants that, its why they refuse audits, nobody but the ones high up know what the trends actually are, if things are actually improving or not, we are all blind trying to see and the news is there to extract revenue from speculation not from real data. (And yes I'm aware chartr exists)

johnnyanmac 1y ago

>how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat" Until it's fixed. I don't think I need to tell you how many times they will write "[politician bad] regardless of the truth to it. >there's hardly any scarcity of news reports around health issues like obesity, or cancer either. Follow the money. Obesity is double, but" fitness" is a billion dollar industry. The message is never "eat less calories and stop subsidizing high fructose corn syrup", it's "buy this new MAGIC pill" or "get swole at the gym near you for $50/month (don't worry you can't cancel easily)" or "try this new diet plan with food we send to you". Cancee is definitely more news hype though. Any little breadcrumb of progress is another package of "have we finally cracked the code to cancer?!" (Betteridge's law applies here). It is exciting stuff but not how the news frames it.

GuB-42 1y ago

> And regarding reporting, how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"? Or are you supposed to cover every heart attack on a news story? The article addresses your point with: "A newspaper that constantly covers heart disease and kidney failure would be a boring one that soon goes out of business." The last paragraph is about whether or not the bias matters, and I find the conclusion particularly interesting: "But there’s one final reason why this bias matters. It makes it hard for us to understand how causes of death are changing over time."