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Why do "Babyboomers" appear to be sicker?
Just Want to Talk | Last Active: Jul 24, 2023 | Replies (34)Comment receiving replies
You said "Our generation was exposed to so many dangerous elements, even our classrooms has asbestos in the walls, our pencils contained lead, they put chemicals in our water, the list is endless and at the end of the day, our bodies are showing the effects of all this progress" - but that is true of the generations before us as well. Those things have been around for a long time, people sickened and died from them, and nobody knew why. Asbestos has been in use for over 100 years, mines and factories dumped raw pollutants into our water since the 1800's, lead pipes to carry water since ancient times. Our parents and grandparents had no vaccines, no antibiotics, no OSHA workplace protection...so in 1940, if you got pneumonia, hepatitis, cancer, or heart disease, or asbestosis, or ???, you were sick for a short while and you died. If you got pneumonia, scarlet fever, a strep infection or if your body wasn't strong you might not recover - or be left with lifelong health issues and die young.
What has changed is what we KNOW about both the pollutants and disease and illness. And how to treat them.
And life expectancy has changed - when my grandma died in 1957 at the age of 74, no one said "oh she died so young" but when my Dad died in at the same age 1999 we heard that over and over. Now I am nearly there, and don't even really think of myself and my contemporaries as "old" - even though our bodies are!
Sue
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Sometimes I wonder about our location. My husband grew up in Australia, came over here in his early 20's. He is coming up to 78 and doing well. His whole family has passed, cancer a large factor. My grandmother lived on the east coast and passed at 96 yrs. My mother at 95 yrs. My father died at 74 yrs. He was a heavy smoker and when he realized it was dangerous, he couldn't quit. I believe we are healthier because we have learned what is good for our health, but we are the generation, along with the last one, to have been killing off this planet with out 'progress'. It seems that no one gave any thought to the downside of some of our progress. We are now in a position to do something about it, but it may be too little too late.