American Decline

Looks like Mexico is en route to surpassing the United States as the world's fattest nation. Note that Mexico has an impressive life expectancy at birth of 75.6 years despite being a pretty poor country without first class health care services and a diet that's not generally regarded as particularly healthy.

This is perhaps related to the so-called "Hispanic Paradox" in US health care outcomes, wherein inside the United States "which most Hispanic groups are characterized by low socioeconomic status, but better than expected health and mortality outcomes."

Comments

The only logical conclusion is that my path to longevity requires eating exclusively at Taco Bell.

Posted by DTM | March 25, 2008 8:43 AM

Far be it from Matt to see this for what it really represents: economic progress for Mexico. In the left world view though, society is a zero sum game.

Posted by James Robertson | March 25, 2008 8:51 AM

Well, I'd say the "Hispanic Paradox" is closely related to the "Female Paradox", namely that on average women earn less than men but live longer...

Posted by RKU | March 25, 2008 8:55 AM

Mexicans rate near the top on international polls of self-assessed happiness. Americans only a little above average. If you're happy, you're happy to stick around for longer.

Posted by Matt | March 25, 2008 9:00 AM

I wonder, re the Paradox, if there's something to my anecdotal observation while I lived in Mexico for two years back in the '80s that, even among people we would consider desperately poor, Mexicans don't "stress out" over things anywhere close to the extent that Americans do. In all my time there, mixing with people from every socioeconomic class, never once did I hear anyone talk about how much stress s/he was under.

Posted by John B. | March 25, 2008 9:02 AM

Note that Mexico has an impressive life expectancy at birth of 75.6 years despite being a pretty poor country without first class health care services and a diet that's not generally regarded as particularly healthy

Mexico is not actually that poor of a country by world-wide standards. In terms of per-capita GNP it is the second wealthiest country in Latin America behind only Chile and ahead of both Argentina and Brazil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Mexico has gotten very good at exporting its poorest citizens to the US but that doesn't necessary mean that those who remain are in poverty.

As for diet? Don't mistake Taco Bell for the Mexican diet. Rural Mexicans eat a lot of legumes and grains and the snack food/fast food culture is far less developed than here in the US.

Posted by Kent from Waco | March 25, 2008 9:02 AM

Do Mexicans drink more wine than Americans? Say, a glass with dinner?

Posted by stm177 | March 25, 2008 9:02 AM

Note that Mexico has an impressive life expectancy at birth of 75.6 years despite being a pretty poor country without first class health care services and a diet that's not generally regarded as particularly healthy

Mexico is not actually that poor of a country by world-wide standards. In terms of per-capita GNP it is the second wealthiest country in Latin America behind only Chile and ahead of both Argentina and Brazil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Mexico has gotten very good at exporting its poorest citizens to the US but that doesn't necessary mean that those who remain are in poverty.

As for diet? Don't mistake Taco Bell for the Mexican diet. Rural Mexicans eat a lot of legumes and grains and the snack food/fast food culture is far less developed than here in the US.

Posted by Kent from Waco | March 25, 2008 9:04 AM

Note that Mexico has an impressive life expectancy at birth of 75.6 years despite being a pretty poor country without first class health care services and a diet that's not generally regarded as particularly healthy

Mexico is not actually that poor of a country by world-wide standards. In terms of per-capita GNP it is the second wealthiest country in Latin America behind only Chile and ahead of both Argentina and Brazil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Mexico has gotten very good at exporting its poorest citizens to the US but that doesn't necessary mean that those who remain are in poverty.

As for diet? Don't mistake Taco Bell for the Mexican diet. Rural Mexicans eat a lot of legumes and grains and the snack food/fast food culture is far less developed than here in the US.

Posted by Kent from Waco | March 25, 2008 9:05 AM

Less overdiagnosis maybe?

Posted by Falcon | March 25, 2008 9:11 AM

It's the Chille Relleno, although even a decent one is hard to find.

Posted by gregor | March 25, 2008 9:21 AM

We obviously need to invade and conquer Mexico. U.S. citizens everywhere are suffering abbreviated lifespans due to the stress of worrying about maruading hordes of short brown people swarming across our borders. Heart attacks, cancers and fatal onset of the vapors and conniptions combine to form "THE HISPANIC PLAGUE!!" I'll rake my own leaves and put that new roof on my house all by myself Goddammit, thank you!

Posted by steve duncan | March 25, 2008 9:21 AM

sorry about the multiple posts.

regarding the wine consumption. Mexican wine consumption is exceedingly low...in the neighborhood of 0.14 liter per capita compared to around 55 liter per capita for France or 8 liters per capita for the US.

http://www.wineinstitute.org/files/PerCapitaWineConsumptionCountries.pdf

In colonial days, Mexican wine production was squelched by Spain to protect Spanish vinyards and a wine culture never really developed in Mexico.

Posted by Kent from Waco | March 25, 2008 9:39 AM

Well, since I eat a whole lot of Mexican food, I guess I'll live a long time.

On the other hand, it's "Mexican food" that real Mexicans have never heard of, so maybe that doesn't count...

Posted by RKU | March 25, 2008 9:57 AM

John B. has the answer:

never once did I hear anyone talk about how much stress s/he was under

And Kent from Waco has the further explanation:

a w[h]ine culture never really developed in Mexico.

:)

Seriously, Mexican food, if the fatty ingredients are used in more moderation than Americans are wont to use them, is seriously healthy. Actually, for whatever reason, when I am having serious allergy problems, nothing clears up some of the more uncomfortable aspects of angio-edema as fast or as well as a good burrito (which isn't, I don't think, even quite "real" Mexican food).

Posted by DAS | March 25, 2008 9:58 AM

It would be interesting to see how the statistics are broken down by region- I would suspect that obesity rates are higher in the more prosperous north of Mexico than in the poorer, more traditional South. Mexico, on average, is not that poor of a country, even though the south is quite poor. As has been pointed out.

Mexico also has more of a history as a 'social state', with at least a nominal commitment to social provision and the welfare of the poor, than most Latin American countries- up until 2000 it was run by the party that claimed to be heirs of the Mexican Revolution, and land ownership was until the 1990s more equal than in much of the reason, with a lot of it owned by village cooperatives. This is part of the reason why ever since the 1920s there was never a serious armed threat to the government from the left, unlike other countries in the region, and could also help to explain the higher life expectancy.

By the way, my understanding was that some of the Polynesian countries like Nauru and Samoa outstrip both Mexico and the US in terms of rates of obesity, for reasons that may be related to diet, genetics, or both.

Southern Mexican food is relatively healthy, I think- more corn and beans, green vegetables, and fish, less milk and cheese than in the North.

Posted by Hector | March 25, 2008 10:22 AM

According to the 2005 WHO statistics, Mexico is the 19th fattest country in the world- the US is 9th. Ahead of the US are Kuwait, Micronesia, and several Polynesian countries. Nauru has an unbelievable 95% of their country overweight, which makes me wonder about the validity of their definition.

Posted by Hector | March 25, 2008 10:32 AM

According to the link, the fattening of Mexico is of pretty recent vintage.
Perhaps that 75+ life expectancy will be heading downwards?

Posted by Taisa | March 25, 2008 10:36 AM

my path to longevity requires eating exclusively at Taco Bell.

No, you're supposed to eat Mexican food if you want to live longer

Posted by rea | March 25, 2008 10:39 AM

Fun fact: Salma Hayek and Barbara Mikulski are the same height and age.

Posted by joejoejoe | March 25, 2008 11:15 AM

Fun fact: Salma Hayek and Barbara Mikulski are the same height and age.

Does "Fun fact" mean the same thing as "not fact"? Salma Hayek is 41. Mikulski is 71.

Posted by John | March 25, 2008 12:01 PM

despite being a pretty poor country without first class health care services and a diet that's not generally regarded as particularly healthy.

I worked in Mexico for several years and health care as I experienced was actually pretty good. There is a goverment run service IMSS that gets paid by payroll taxes, that covers everybody that has a job in the formal economy. There are a lot of lines and plenty of horror stories about it, but some of the best doctors work there (along with ALL of the bad ones) and for serious and expensive illness that's the place to go. My mother got treated for cancer and she lived 22 more years until she died of something else at 77.

There is also numerous physicians in private practice, as well as private hospitals ranging from horrendous to world-class.

While I worked there I had access both systems, as my company offered private health insurance.

One important thing is office visits to private practitioners or specialists are generally not covered in the insurance policies and that is a GOOD thing. Keeps prices low enough so that you can actually pay out of pocket, a doctor with a excelent reputation will charge the equivalent 50-80 US a visit. Some poor people actually preffer to pay rather than stand in line in the public health system.

Make no mistake Doctors in Mexico drive the same Mercedes and Lincolns US doctors drive and have membership to fancy Golf Clubs too.

Posted by Henry | March 25, 2008 1:07 PM

Nauru has an unbelievable 95% of their country overweight, which makes me wonder about the validity of their definition.

Snarky response: Have you ever known any Polynesians?

Non-snarky response: WHO uses BMI as an indicator, and BMI is an extraordinarily crude measurement.

http://tinyurl.com/2px3a7

Oddly enough, I see that the obesity rates from the Marshall Islands are a lot lower than for the nearby (and also Micronesian) Federated States of Micronesia.

Posted by Adam Villani | March 25, 2008 1:11 PM

Make no mistake Doctors in Mexico drive the same Mercedes and Lincolns US doctors drive and have membership to fancy Golf Clubs too.

Well, I'm no expert on Mexican health care, but offhand it sounds like a very big difference is the absence of the totally gigantic private healthcare *administration* system we have in the U.S., which absorbs a vast and growing percentage of all our healthcare dollars.

One thing that sunk the old Soviet Union was their huge number of non-productive administrators/bureaucrats. Our healthcare system has some of the same fatal weaknesses.

Posted by RKU | March 25, 2008 1:12 PM

Looking at page 87 of the 2007 Pocket World in Figures, it looks to me like in obesity rates, there are several middle eastern countries that beat the U.S. and Mexico in terms of obesity. For male obesity, Lebanaon, Qatar, Kuwait, and Panama all beat the U.S. (Mexico doesn't come close.) For female obesity, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, West Bank and Gaza, Lebanon, Panama, Albania, and Bahrain all beat the U.S. Mexico, once again, is fairly far behind all these countries and the U.S., although its still fairly high up in obesity rates.

Posted by Julian Elson | March 25, 2008 1:15 PM

John, I believe that in your regional argot you would refer to "fun fact" as "joke".

Posted by Walt | March 25, 2008 2:09 PM

Mexico's average per capita GDP is now 25% above the world average. Indeed, 5.1 billion people live in countries with lower per capita incomes than Mexico.

The Mexican government in recent years has introduced programs to bribe parents to send their children to school, which should help in the long run with Mexico's problem of being one of the most undereducated countries in the world relative to its potential. It still faces big problems collecting taxes from the rich to pay for needed social services and the economy is hamstrung by privatized monopolies. For example, high landline telephone prices have made Carlos Slim perhaps the richest man in the world.

In summary, Mexico is not some Darfur-like humanitarian disaster that requires America to take in millions of refugees. It's an underachieving country that isn't that bad right now and could do lots better with good leadership.

Posted by Steve Sailer | March 25, 2008 4:37 PM

Mexico needs, more than anything else, another Cárdenas. But no, Mr. Sailer is right, it's not best described as a poor country.

Posted by Hector | March 25, 2008 4:55 PM

Re: Keeps prices low enough so that you can actually pay out of pocket, a doctor with a excelent reputation will charge the equivalent 50-80 US a visit.

That's more or less what US doctors (non-specialists) charge when you're paying out of pocket, though our average is probably closer to $80 than $50. (Up until two years I used to go to a doctor that was out-of-network from my health plan because he was a good doctor and I never had any trouble getting in to see him. He charged $60 for a simple visit, at least when not going through insurance, of which I was able to get $25 back from my insurer by filing the paperwork myself).

Re: Nauru has an unbelievable 95% of their country overweight, which makes me wonder about the validity of their definition.

Nauru is a very tiny country with a small (9,265 people, per Wikipedia) and fairly inbred population. It's not impossible for that statistic to be true.

Posted by JonF | March 25, 2008 7:16 PM

"That's more or less what US doctors (non-specialists) charge when you're paying out of pocket, though our average is probably closer to $80 than $50."

The local medical clinic I usually go to when I don't want to wait for an appointment somewhere else charges $80 for a physician visit if you pay out of pocket (you can then get generic drugs at Pathmark or Wal-Mart for $4 per prescription, if you don't have health insurance). There was an article in the WSJ a couple of years ago about a new trend among some primary care physicians who eschew all insurance -- even Medicare and Medicaid. They call it PATOS (pay at time of service). Since they just get paid directly, they have no need for any employees to handle billing. So they're able to charge $35 for an office visit.

Posted by Fred | March 26, 2008 1:22 AM