Health-conscious Americans may want to reach for a plate of fish and chips or a pint of ale after digesting the results of a new study.The study mentions that "The Americans tended to be overweight and the Brits too fond of alcohol," says National Geographic, which includes a lovely photo of Prince Charles hoisting a pint.
Older British citizens are far healthier than their U.S. counterparts -- even though twice as much is spent on health care per person in the United States annually. That's according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The subjects are older even than me, and must certainly recall a time when health-hectoring was nothing like what it is today, when bangers and mash and toad in the hole were considered nourishment, when men drank Guinness For Strength. It also must include '60s people, so them what wasn't poisoning themselves with Bleeding Watney's Red Barrel might have spent a long run in some early, environmental production of Withnail & I.
I am not one to disdain medical science, Lord knows, nor do I reflexively reject the obvious data on behaviors and physical condition. But I have spent several weeks in England, usually among the sort of people who subsist on fried foods, strong drink, and Players cigarettes. They were not always the most appealing specimens, by American standards, and their skin often had the color and consistency of trifle, but they were cheerful despite the lousy weather, cold flats, and allegedly oppressive Welfare State. And very few of them belonged to a health club, or ate organic foods.
We are speaking anecdotally, which is to say out our ass. It may be that the better-educated component of English study group, less likely to spend their evenings in the boozer eating crisps, or some other statistical outlier affected the results. But I will say that my own narrow experience suggests that the Brits did well to give the Puritans reason to come over here to work out their program of self-denial.
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