Study: Canadians Healthier Than Americans

Does this surprise anyone?

ATLANTA (AP) - You can add Canadians to the list of foreigners who are healthier than Americans. Americans are 42 percent more likely than Canadians to have diabetes, 32 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12 percent more likely to have arthritis, Harvard Medical School researchers found. That is according to a survey in which American and Canadian adults were asked over the telephone about their health.

It doesn't surprise me because I happen to live in the land of fast-food and all-can-eat buffets.

Eat, eat, eat to your heart-attacks content.

No wonder Americans are adament on universal health-care, they don't have any idea of how to stay healthy and they want someone else to pay for their unhealthy lifestyles.

Yeah. I said it. If you drink and you know the consequences, pay for it yourself. If you smoke and know it'll give you cancer, pay for it yourself. If you are a glutton and happen to catch heart disease, pay for it yourself and stop crying to everyone else that it's their problem.

Here's the rest of the story.

To all bitching, unhealthy Americans: LEAVE ME ALONE!



[edit on 30/5/06 by Intelearthling]

I am total agreement with you. But then the question is, how do we promote healthy lifestyles? We can't just get rid of McDonalds.

Unfortunately, we do know how to eat healthy. We, as a society, seem to not care to.

JDub

Something all you universal health care folk should remember- we are taxed about 15% right off the top in sales taxes to support it. Now, with all your diseases and whatnot, can you even AFFORD healthcare, much less something half a good as our nightmarishly bad system?

DE

Actually many americans ARE NOT adament about universal health care and it gets shot down the last time it was brought up.... last election I believe.

It is actually canadians and the british who have universal healthcare.


The only reason Americans are begining to consider universal health care is simply because of the astronomical amounts of money that are paid to doctors and medical insurance companies.

Many people my age do without healthcare because we simply cannot afford it...yet the rich can pay for the top doctors etc.

the next time someone proposes universal health care, you got my vote!




[edit on 31-5-2006 by XphilesPhan]

We are so busy working to pay our benign dictatorship gov't it's 65% tax rate that we don't have time or money to do the self destructive fun stuff. I'm a minimum 14 hours a day 7 days a week with no life or time to go boozin & womanizing.

The last time I was in the States I had waitresses trying to mother me, because I'd eat a starter and nothing else - the portions were soooo huge that I knew that eating a main course would be a waste of food!
I think it's a number of factors, including transport access. I keep myself fairly fit - my fiancee says that she knows when I haven't had my daily walk, because this stir-crazy look comes into my eyes. It's a good point - I like to walk at least 2 miles a day. I get this stuff called fresh air. It's a British thing - the parks and woods are always full of people and there are walking clubs that go sodding everywhere.
But in the States you're actively encouraged to use transport, I guess because the place is so huge. I was stared at when I walked around in Tennessee, and my insistence on walking everywhere in San Francisco got me some more odd looks. And in some places there was a massive lack of pavements/sidewalks.
By the way, look up the diabetes situation in New York. Explosion is an understatement. Very sad.

I was writing a story about this a few months back and I found what has to be the most scary set of stats ever. Here's a link to a page on the CDC's website: www.cdc.gov...
Just under the map there's a link to a powerpoint presentation that shows the overall trend in the US over the past 15 years. It shocked me.