
Millennials are sicker than Gen X, which bodes ill for the future economy - freedomben
https://www.deseret.com/2019/12/16/20997339/millennials-are-sicker-than-gen-x-which-bodes-ill-for-the-future-economy
======
adamwong246
Don't the other generations feel the specter of dread hovering over us? Like
you are running on a treadmill as fast as you can and knowing that if you trip
or stumble, even a little, it's over and what progress you've made will be
undone and you'll end up wandering the streets, muttering to yourself?

Or maybe it's just me?

Among the many things that make me feel ill is that byline. We're painfully
aware that we exist to serve "The Economy"\- perhaps _that_ is what is making
us ill, that we must forever justify our existence in terms of the movements
of bits of green paper?

~~~
cbm-vic-20
GenX here: we were raised with the assumption that if we didn't die in the
looming nuclear holocaust, it would be AIDS that gets us.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
Add to that the recessions and stagflation of the '70s and the fear that the
Japanese would overtake the US economically in the '80s.

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girvo
Working longer hours at more jobs just to make ends meet, while the people at
the top add more 0’s to their bank account, health care costs rising while
income is stagnant or worse. Shouldn’t be that surprising, really, though my
comment is an oversimplification.

The “economic impact” being the focus leaves a bad taste in my mouth; it’s the
economic impact itself thats making it worse, if not outright causing it.

~~~
to11mtm
I can give some more real world observed results.

I once worked in an industry once that wound up forcing long periods of
excessive overtime. Think 60+ hour weeks for months on end. And for peanuts
(16 to 22 an hour.)

The combined stress resulted in the following issues among the team:

\- Employee #1 committed suicide the weekend after valentines day, (work
stress led to alcoholism relapse, then everything else fell apart)

\- Employee #2 wound up completely throwing out his back (i.e. could not move
and had to crawl into his house) because of the bad chair ergonomics.

\- Employee #4 had multiple nervous breakdowns, ruining their marriage and
setting back their life years.

\- Employee #5 relapsed on some bad habits involving opioids.

Of the above 4, 2 were tobacco users and their intake increased substantially
during these time periods. This was true of others on the team that didn't
fall into these more extreme examples.

But even in those other cases, I saw ruined marriages, slow spirals into bad
habits (gambling, drinking, adult clubs, etc.) and overall years taken off
peoples life from stress.

So yeah, long hours are no joke.

Edit: I skipped #3 on the list because the way they responded to stress wasn't
easy to delineate. (They were however also a smoker and would increase intake
under stress)

On the other hand... it's worth noting that #3, when under high workload
stress, would become very judgemental, easily offended and prone to rants that
would, depending on day, either belong on breitbart or buzzfeed.

~~~
grawprog
To speak to this. I've spent the last 5 years working 9-10 hour days 6 days a
week. Over this time i've pretty much been chain smoking cigarettes and weed,
drink every night, spent a couple years doing some...uhhhh interesting
things...while still working....nearly fucked my life up toally. My health's
deteriorated a fair bit. I'm congested constantly and I've had a chronic sinus
infection for years, my back's fairly fucked.

It's kinda caused me to break down a bit, I quit a couple weeks ago and moved.
I've been working a job lately with less hours, but different demands that
haven't really made things much better.

~~~
throwaway8879
Hope you're able to change those habits, friend.

------
Thorentis
> Millennials are sicker due to the state of the economy and their job
> conditions caused by the economy

> This is bad for the economy

Sorry, but anybody who is still measuring things in terms of "the economy"
needs to take a real hard look at themselves in the mirror, and ask why they
care more about how many zeros are in their bank account, and less about
fellow human beings.

I am all for the "free market", innovation, small businesses, careers, making
a profit - but never at the expense of my health, my family's health, or the
health of other people.

~~~
odkamkfn
Your health, your family's health and the health of other people - all of that
is related to the economy.

~~~
chongli
I think the point here is that if we are looking at the economy as the
ultimate end and treating people as the means to that end, then we’re doing it
wrong [1]. I get annoyed every single time I hear people justify the suffering
of others as “good for the economy.”

 _Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in
the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the
same time as an end._

— Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#The_sec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#The_second_formulation:_the_formula_of_humanity)

------
alexfromapex
I think the culture of getting a loan for everything is part of what’s
perpetuating the bad economy. You’re giving your money away to the bank to
borrow their money while they sit back and do nothing to collect. A little
patience and you can have that car or house without paying double the cost and
then the banks don’t get your money and it incentivizes other parts of the
economy that don’t involve lining the pockets of the already very rich.

~~~
campee
I think that's true of a car but unless you live in an area that is not
densely populated (and probably won't have much in the way of jobs), then the
house part is not true, unless you're willing to live with your parents until
you're at least 30.

~~~
sixseven
> unless you're willing to live with your parents until you're at least 30.

Which is considered normal in many non-US cultures.

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octokatt
If only there was a way to distribute the cost of preventative care, so
overall costs would decrease...

~~~
throwaway1777
The most important forms of preventative care (diet and exercise) are
basically free.

~~~
octokatt
In most of the industrialized world, good diet and exercise are engineered out
of lifestyles, especially for the poor. Grocery stores are dying,
neighborhoods are becoming less walkable, and leisure time is increasingly
filled with internet entertainment designed to be addictive.

Your comment makes no sense within a broader, practical framework.

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helen___keller
> Advances [...] have resulted in an addictive but sedentary lifestyle that
> goes against human design, he said. It disrupts circadian rhythms, lowers
> exposure to sunshine’s vitamin D and alters how we eat.

You can say that again. I've been living a sedentary, indoors lifestyle my
entire life (literally since I got a gameboy pocket at 5 years old) because I
grew up in a place where I hated to be outside, but in the past 5 years or so
I've come to observe that my mood, my alertness, and my general happiness
takes a dive if I don't get enough time outside, even just to take a walk
every now and then.

I moved to a new apartment that requires a solid 25 minute walk each direction
every day as part of my commute, and I think that's helped a lot to help make
things more regular. Winter time sucks because it's almost always dark
outside, but still if I work from home for a day I can feel the difference in
my body from not having my usual walk.

Even with freezing weather and unshoveled slush on the ground, I still
wouldn't give up my daily walk for, say, a car ride. I know I don't have the
discipline to stay healthy outside of what's necessary to get to work.

~~~
nradov
Why do you lack that discipline?

~~~
helen___keller
I don't know, but just speaking empirically I usually don't feel like doing
things that are "productive" (side projects, working out, etc) after work

I'm sure there's ways to improve on motivation, but my point is that
empirically I've struggled with that and on the other hand I get my daily
commute "for free" in terms of motivation

~~~
nradov
Motivation is mostly bunk and tends to fall off quickly. It's more important
to build discipline through good habits. Force yourself to exercise daily for
a few weeks no matter how tired you are or how miserable it makes you. After a
while it just becomes automatic and you stop having to think about it.

You might not feel like brushing your teeth every day but you still do it,
right? Same thing.

~~~
riversflow
At the risk of making myself seem untrainable, this doesn’t work for me. I can
have a habit and break it by accident, but I always manage to say physically
fit. This “motivation is mostly bunk” is about the worst advice you could give
some like me. The _main_ reason I stay fit is philosophical, or at least a
remnant of my philosophy studies. Often the words of Socrates burn in my head;
always a source of motivation. “No man has the right to be an amateur in the
matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without
seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

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robbywashere_
>hamper the economy.

what a bs bottom line

~~~
danharaj
Try to remember when economic activity served human life instead of the other
way around.

~~~
romski
When

~~~
danharaj
Well, originally economy referred to the maintenance of the household to the
benefit of its members. That was circa Aristotle. Binary search from there?

------
7loopscom
It is really funny, everyone here seems to understand that stress at work is
bad, and everyone is afraid of getting ill and costs of healthcare. But as
soon as someone suggests a similar model that we have here in
Europe(government-provided health care, more worker rights, more holidays),
everybody loses their mind. People you are sacrificing your health for the
owners of the company you are working for, and maybe some top managers.

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8bitsrule
This piece is less formal, but with more immediacy.

[https://www.boredpanda.com/why-do-millennials-want-to-
die/](https://www.boredpanda.com/why-do-millennials-want-to-die/)

------
Musaab
Working more for less, ending up with more stress, eating genetically modified
food, breathing in pollution, taking in constant radiation from wifi and
cellular signals...the soft kill is working.

------
birdyrooster
If making a persuasive argument to capitalists regarding government
intervention in healthcare, I don’t see how it wouldn’t be advantageous to
sell the programs as a way to improve their bottom line. If healthy people get
the things they need to be productive, then they are productive and the
business benefits. It’s as if these advocates don’t believe in the benefits of
the programs they are selling. Do they not believe it will have appreciable
effects for the greater economy?

~~~
modo_mario
Oh they sure do but i don't think "improve their bottom line" actually affects
that many people comparatively and those who it does affect's wealth is
relative and not that easily budged by the fact that people with more
purchasing power being able to circulate more money, people with better
overall health being more productive, etc is better for the economy. At least
not if it has to come from their pocket in any way.

------
throwawayhhakdl
I would be curious to see these effects normalized to obesity. I suspect all
trends of declining health (like sperm counts) are mostly this.

Not to imply that obesity isn’t driven by mostly the factors described by
others here.

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mister_hn
I don't know other millennials, but I am sick less than 2 days/year.

I'm vaccinated, no allergies.

Is this maybe related to Gen X Anti-Vaxxers?

~~~
7loopscom
Gen X were born before Millenials, so if it is vaccine related it is most
probably just the opposite.

~~~
mister_hn
Having Anti-Vaxxers parents produces weak children (Millennials, Gen Z)

~~~
7loopscom
[https://www.oatext.com/Pilot-comparative-study-on-the-
health...](https://www.oatext.com/Pilot-comparative-study-on-the-health-of-
vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-6-to-12-year-old-U-S-children.php)

~~~
g8oz
Please don't link to a fake science site.

[http://flakyj.blogspot.com/2017/12/immense-pleasure-from-
ope...](http://flakyj.blogspot.com/2017/12/immense-pleasure-from-open-access-
text.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing)

