Me in my 30s: “my doctor says I need to eat nothing but kale and lukewarm water or I’ll die at 50” deeper-sadness

  • Grandpa_garbagio [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    7 hours ago

    might be something to living whatever lifestyle you can manage that stresses you out the least. Like if having drinks to relax helps you maintain a positive outlook throughout the day it might be worth it lol

  • CrawlMarks [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    13 hours ago

    I see three possible avenues for this. 1. We get more sugar than them and sugar is worse than we realize. 2. They had less liberalism, and living with community and purpose was better enough to keep them going. 3. They died more and if anything was gonna make them sick they wouldn’t have survived till old age so the survivorship bias is stronger.

    So we just need to find a way to isolate those variables and do a regression for the data. Yeah?

    • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      11 hours ago
      1. They died more and if anything was gonna make them sick they wouldn’t have survived till old age so the survivorship bias is stronger.

      It’s sort of this, but also the fact that risk factors are probabilistic and there are, to put it bluntly, a very large number of people. Some might theoretically have a small mutation that makes their system more robust in some indefinable way, but mostly it’s just a matter of there being so many people that some of them are going to win all the “risk of imminent death” dice rolls for a very long time.

  • hollowmines [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    13 hours ago

    ngl the recurring significant labour associated with my job has improved my physical health a lot (and mental health…somewhat) despite my so-so habits in the rest of life

  • I think about this phenomenon a lot. some of it is certainly survivor bias, but I do think environmental contaminants and industrial food processing are cumulative and subject to some kind magnification.

    of course, I never met any of my grandfathers as they died from cardiac events in their 40s before I was born. one was due to major alcoholism and the other is unknown… just a massive heart attack 20 years before I was born. the next gen of men seem to have mostly made it to their 70s, with some close calls and none of them are what I would call robust individuals. definitely higher incidence of diagnosed metabolic disorders and their comorbidities. also, a lot of late boomers just seem to ignore everything their doctors say.

    I have an aunt in her 70s that can now no longer walk and has lost her vision after ignoring her doctors about controlling her diabetes for 20 years. just kept on chowing down on pasta and sugary drinks, not taking any of her medications. I do not get it at all. now all her retired siblings are having to figure out the schedule for taking care of her for the next decade or whatever.

    I noticed something with boomers in my family. they all swore up and down that “when the time comes, I don’t want to be a burden” but despite all the material capacity, time to plan, and infrastructure in the world, they have made absolutely zero plans to become anything but a sudden and insane burden on everyone around them, who are all working poor and can barely support themselves.

    I remember all of them complaining about their parents doing it to them, and they are bending over backwards to do it even more themselves. like no understanding that they will one day stop being allowed to drive and need to plan for that day… and not try to defy it by putting their community in danger.

    • operacion_ogro [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      12 hours ago

      I have an aunt in her 70s that can now no longer walk and has lost her vision after ignoring her doctors about controlling her diabetes for 20 years. just kept on chowing down on pasta and sugary drinks, not taking any of her medications. I do not get it at all. now all her retired siblings are having to figure out the schedule for taking care of her for the next decade or whatever.

      I noticed something with boomers in my family. they all swore up and down that “when the time comes, I don’t want to be a burden” but despite all the material capacity, time to plan, and infrastructure in the world, they have made absolutely zero plans to become anything but a sudden and insane burden on everyone around them, who are all working poor and can barely support themselves.

      I’m dealing with this with my dad lately. He has a laundry list of health problems, including diabetes, that he ignored for over a decade, and now his health is completely imploding, which my family now has to scramble to help him with. Motherfucker spent a two months in the hospital and went straight back to his old bad habits as soon as he was out.

  • Dimmer06 [he/him,comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    16 hours ago

    My great grandmother lived and worked in lumber camps for her first thirty years and then textile mills for thirty more. She smoked like a chimney and started every morning off with a screwdriver. She lived into her mid 90s. Sometimes I wonder if I should be more like her.

    • SpiderFarmer [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      14 hours ago

      My grandpa would take a swig of port wine every morning. I don’t want to defend functioning alcoholism, mind you. i’ve worked enough jobs where I was the only sober guy present.

      • CocteauChameleons [none/use name]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        11 hours ago

        My grandpa was a drunk from 10-70. Now he cant walk and is in and out of the hospital and my grandma takes care of him. Shes the same age and took care herself so you wouldn’t really think shes almost 80. But also my step dads brother just died out of nowhere at 59 to brain cancer. It’s surreal because I just saw him last year and he looked great. His dad also lived to 80 and mom to 96. So yolo this shit imo