Okay, how can the most advanced society in the history of mankind...
By ParaTed2k
@ParaTed2k (22940)
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
September 17, 2009 9:12am CST
be getting so broken down?
I guess some people shrug it off as, "not more common, just more covered" or something, but they would be wrong.
Only a few years ago "CPAP" machines were only heard of by the relative few who needed them and people in health care professions. The equipment was so rare it wasn't massed produced, and had to be ordered or puchased at a hospital.
Now we have a chain of stores dedicated to selling CPAP machines and supplies.
Just a decade or so, Autism was only heard of by those it directly effected (either the person with it or their immediate family). Now everyone knows more than one family with an autistic member. Schools have had to develop programs because there are too many autistic kids to ignore anymore.
Skin cancer has gone from one of the rarest forms of cancer to one of the most common. Exposure to the sun is often blamed, but we have less daily exposure to the sun than any generation that came before us. The sun didn't change, our skin did.
I bet most the people in my dad's generation didn't even know they had a prostate unless they took anatomy and physiology. Regular health classes rarely mentioned it at all. But now prostate cancer is a household word.
So what gives, how are we so much more fragile than our ancestors? People point to lengthening life expectancies, and that's true, but that is the generation that was born in the 20s and 30s. We have no idea if there will be some tipping point in the next 40 years, bringing life expectancies into decline. If we are gaining household words from things all but unheard of before... how long can it be?
4 people like this
5 responses
@deebomb (15304)
• United States
17 Sep 09
I think we are more informed than Our parents or grandparente were. I also agree with h suspenseful. we are getting more chemicals in our food than ever before. Some of our food is raised with them and preservative to add to the shelf life. we are inundated with such large portions and so much food with sugar now added so much one wonders what the real thing tastes like. most people worked much harder than they do now. The air was cleaner too. In my parents and grandparents day they didn't have equipment to do mamagrams and the same with a lot of other midical equipment. besides we are learning more every day about sickness and health. I do think we are also more fragile because of the things in our water and food chain.
1 person likes this
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
17 Sep 09
I think most of it is stuff we're doing to ourselves. Processed foods aren't good for you, and they're something that people have only been doing a lot of the past couple decades. How are we to know that there isn't some ingredient in some processed or frozen food that doesn't help speed up the cancer process or create some other health issues. Don't even get me started on the fast food. Do you know any other nation in the world that goes through as much fast food as ours?
What about technology too? Computers have only been really popular the past 10 or 20 years, cellphones are a rather new gadget. These days you're hard pressed to find anyone who isn't on a phone, laptop, or got an ipod shoved in their ear! Are we totally certain these things are safe?
We're learning new things everyday. One day the sun is good for you, the next day it isn't. What will be next? What are they going to tell us is unsafe for us now?
1 person likes this
@Hatley (163781)
• Garden Grove, California
18 Sep 09
I guess in one way it is but the Advances of medical science have also prolonged the lives of a lot of us, and more education instead'of less has helped many people like myself to live a f ull life even
though I have diabetes,if we had had more info instead of less years ack I could have even avoided having diabetes as I would have known what to do and what not to do for good health
@Barbietre (1438)
• United States
18 Sep 09
Kate said it, all the junk we are eating, and the pure laziness of most of us. I grew up in a suburb of NYC and we walked or took th buses and trains to get most places. Now I love further out on Long Island and I ( as do 99% of the residents)drive everywhere. And while I have cut out the junk and processed foods and try to eat more natural, I still think the damage is done.
@Gemstar6 (71)
• New Zealand
18 Sep 09
We are doing it to ourselves!We are becoming weaker and stupider and sicker at our own hands. The utter rubbish polluting our supermarket shelves as mentioned previously is a major factor. We no longer know what the food looks like when it is in a paddock or hanging off a tree. We have no resdpect for food and what it takes to make it. And what about our tendency to try to save every baby that is premature or deformed?. Mother Nature has safeguards and babies that are extremely premature were not meant to be born because there is something wrong with them. Then they spend the rest of their lives unable to exist at full potential. We spend our days looking after them. We have huge rates of so-called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, making women infertile. There weren't that many barren women years ago were there? Is it what we are eating or the chemicals being used around us? Is it the anti-bacterial sprays that kill 99% of germs turning the remaining 1% into Super Bugs? What about allergies? They seem to have increased beyond measure. Is that because we are too clean? Because instead of playing outside and getting scratched and dirty we play on the rubber-padded playgrounds provided? How do we learn if we are not alowed to fall off something or damage ourselves? how do we learn about consequences? And then we are allowed to drive turbo-charged cars with no concept of consequences. Crazy.
