ER Eddie
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2013
- Messages
- 1,794
I think the reason that the Deep South has lower life expectancy has far more to do with income level, than it does with climate. Lots of folks can't afford health care, and live paycheck to paycheck (if they are employed at all), which doesn't bode well for taking care of themselves...lots of obesity in the South.
That's right. Plus education, which reduces people's understanding of how to maintain health. Plus cultural factors, such as familial habits around eating or other health behaviors (e.g., activity, substance use).
I don't think it has anything to do with climate at all. I don't believe these sorts of studies that are just correlational in nature and attempt through questionable statistical means to parse out the multitude of confounding factors and arrive at some reliable conclusion. It just doesn't produce good results -- although it does produce good headlines.