TLDR: Easily available medical care
Once a country reaches a point where medical care is widely available for everyone the life expectancy starts going up fast.
For most Western countries this happened in the 1950-60s. The infant mortality rate in particular was as high as 20% before the wide spread availability of medical care.
The key point is that obesity and it’s related medical conditions are all treatable, so long as you have access to medical care Diabetes, heart conditions, sleep issues, joint problems, fatty liver, gall stones, etc etc are all treatable conditions.
The US actually has some of the lowest life expectancy rates in the western world.
Obesity is one factor in this, but it’s mostly the cost of medical care. The US continues to drag behind because of their insistence of maintaining a for-profit healthcare system. People don’t want to see a Doctor even for check ups because they have to pay for it, so the poor in particular have much poorer health and lower life expectancy as a result.
Life expectancy is heavily influenced by infant mortality. As a simplified example, 100 people living to 98 years old have the same average life expectancy as 98 of them living to 100 and 2 of them dying before their first birthday. Even if we all die a few years younger, it only takes a few saved babies to cancel that out.
Lifespans are a result of a lot of different factors, not just obesity. The main factors are gender, genetics, access to health care, hygiene, diet and nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, and crime rates. Obviously war and other tumult can have a very dramatic impact on lifespan. The US has the 46th highest life expectancy in the world, meaning 45 countries have a higher life expectancy than them. The US also has the 12th highest obesity rate in the world, meaning only 11 countries have a higher obesity rate than them. The US does have a higher life expectancy than many other countries with lower obesity rates mostly because of access to health care. Unfortunately, the US has a very low life expectancy compared to nations with similar development status, largely due to limits on access to healthcare because of cost and their much higher obesity rates.
Diseases like diabetes, Hypertension and obesity don’t have a cure , but they do have treatments that prolong the life a person can live with mild disability. These diseases are more prevalent in the wealthier countries who have successfully tackled the problems of communicable and deadly diseases like malaria , ebola , dengue etc third world countries are suffering from .
So although these diseases have a lower case fatality rate , their prevalence keeps on piling as new cases are recognised each day. That explains the huge number of cases of these Non Communicable Diseases yet longer average lifespans in wealthier first world countries.
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