…the biggest premature killer of Americans is . . . Americans.
Too many of us appear to be bent on slow-motion suicide. Consider smoking; if we could get every American to stop, we’d save 467,000 lives annually. Solving high blood pressure (much of it arising from unhealthy lifestyles) would save 395,000. And if we could get everyone to slim down to an appropriate body weight, we’d save 216,000 lives.
You can’t aggregate all the lives that would be saved from the 12 lifestyle factors covered by the study because of some serious overlap; obesity, for instance, causes a lot of hypertension. But Dr. Majid Ezzati, a Harvard School of Public Health professor who co-authored the report, estimates that if you net out the double-counting, somewhat more than a million people die annually from the 12 behavioral risk factors, which include the obvious (immoderate alcohol consumption) and the less so (eating too little fish, which provides omega-3 fatty acids).
Put more starkly: Of the 2.5 million deaths that occur annually in America, something approaching half could be prevented if people simply led healthier lives.
“What the new study implies is that our big problem is self-control.” This quote covers it all.
However, the article does not mention the greatest cause of premature deaths in the US and other developed countries – abortion.
Abortion is also a result of lack of self-control. The reason for lack of self-control is usually pain. People use sex as a drug, a means to achieve control, hold another person in relationship, to numb pain, to fill emptiness, supply lack of identity and substitute means of supplying real human needs.
The pain and lack of self control are symptoms of misconceptions and distorted definitions of love, truth and life, male, female, father, mother, God, self and others that spring from a cycle of sin – early wounding, disrespect and abuse, that results in anger, instability, loss of identity, rebellion against God, against God’s Word andTruth and against nature and reality….these all cause loss of reverence for God, for human life created in God’s image….a general disconnection from God and His grace.
The pain and lack of self-control are healed by return to God, submission to God and alignment with God’s Word.
From generation to generation, sin perpetuates more sin, pain begets pain, the captivity continues…unless the Lord is invited to intervene and save, and the wounded person finds a healthy redemptive Church where people love and tell the truth and is able to support, encourage, walk alongside the persons in the grieving, healing, learning, growing sanctification process.
Death comes for every one. This always seems a surprise to Americans for some reason. Life, with its consequence of death, is the number one sexually transmitted dis-ease in the world. Oh, well, they said you couldn’t have your cake and eat it, too. We just don’t want to listen.
I am reminded of when George Carlin noted that people who gave up stuff, and started doing healthy things, were going to feel really stupid when they are dying of nothing.
I see that Gluttony remains one of the Seven Deadly Sins. “Preventing death untimely death”, would probably be a better choice of words here.
Actually, they said “you can’t EAT your cake and HAVE it, too”, you most certainly can have your cake and then eat it.
But have you noticed that sicne Obama took office, there have been increased attacks on the American Way of Life, led by President Obama himself, who (along with his wife) most certainly benefited from the American dream of individual success, wealth accumulation and ambition?
The American Dream and Way of Life (TM) are most certainly based on the success of the individual, but for centuries (well, at least two) this has been done to the benefit of society, and the spreading of this way of life from the richest to the poorest immigrant.
No, thank you, I won’t participate in bashing what made us a great nation and an example to the world. After all, many countries in the world say to America “If it wasn’t for you, our people would have starved to death”.
“…something approaching half could be prevented…”
The word is “postponed”, not “prevented”–every one of those folks is going to die someday, of some cause.