Life expectancies increasing in California....decreasing in South (income, foods)

[user_id]

This map is interesting:

Map of the Day: Falling Life Expectancies | Mother Jones

Life expectancies have increased nicely in all the well populated areas of California. On the other hand the South? Another story.

Just another reason why California should adopt the policies of Southern states...to reduce our life expectancy! What's so great about life anyways?!

[BayAreaHillbilly]

There are fewer children in California and fewer of the very old. That is guaranteed to result in this type of statistic.

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by user_id

Just another reason why California should adopt the policies of Southern states...to reduce our life expectancy! What's so great about life anyways?!

Can I have your stuff when you leave this mortal coil?

[yeahthatguy]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

There are fewer children in California and fewer of the very old. That is guaranteed to result in this type of statistic.

Pretty much .. Leave it to user_id to screw up correlation/causation yet again.. Glad to see him gain the courage though to start an original thread and put his opinion out in front for other to critique though .. He's making progress.

I wont even get into why there are few old people, why people don't have as many kids, etc etc in California .....
I'll just laugh as I already figured it out and won't be here to have kids nor grow old.

[Ceece]

I wont even get into why there are few old people, why people don't have as many kids, etc etc in California .....

Fewer children and fewer very old? I wish you would go into the "why" becasue I haven't heard that before.
It's from 2003 but according to this CA ranked #7 in the population % of people under 18.
http://www.classbrain.com/artstate/p...under_18.shtml

[user_id]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

There are fewer children in California and fewer of the very old.

You just made this up....

[Alley01]

Not surprising the the south would see a decrease in life expectancy. That has been the case for a while now. I would imagine that is the region of the country where people eat the most deep fried foods too and are the most obese.

[user_id]

Originally Posted by yeahthatguy

Pretty much .. Leave it to user_id to screw up correlation/causation yet again..

What exactly is being screwed up? The existence of a correlation doesn't necessitate a direct causal connection, that doesn't mean that a correlation doesn't add inductive support to there being a causal relationship.

Anyhow, the Southern states are developing extreme inequality as a result of their economic policies and the life expectancy numbers are representative of that. The South is looking more and more like a 3rd world country....

[user_id]

Originally Posted by Alley01

I would imagine that is the region of the country where people eat the most deep fried foods too and are the most obese.

The obesity rates in the South are just a few percent higher (on average) than mid-west and eastern states, yet there is a major difference in life expectancy so this wouldn't explain the rates in the South.

The low life expectancy rates are correlated to income, the southern states have the worst poverty problems and there is little support for the poor in these states.

[TimC2462]

If this thread is so much about South, maybe it's not in the right forum.