Time to Move To Japan

Living Longer In the East

There are a great number of benefits to be derived from living in the U.S. I thought about that today as I spent more on an anniversary dinner than many people in the world make in a couple of months. I have a couple of automobiles, and I can afford the gas (for now) to operate them. Stores have everything I need (and more), and I have the money to shop for things that I would like but definitely do not need...currently, a new iPod shuffle (my other one died). Toss in a few other notable things like freedom of speech, religion, and, in some places, sexual orientation, and this country is hard to beat. Having baseball is just icing on the cake. However, there is a price to pay for all of these "luxuries": I will die before many other people in the world who were born in the same year. The United States currently ranks #38 in terms of longevity among world nations; and, according to a study partnered by the University of Washington-Seattle and Imperial College in London, we're falling even farther behind.
According to the study's authors, the differences cannot be explained simply by size of nation, amount of racial diversity or national economics. Apparently, there are a whole host of things we Americans need to be thinking about if we don't want to have to move to another more healthy country!
1. One in five Americans die as a result of smoking...count both my parents in that figure. It seems that we are one of the more lenient countries when it comes to allowing advertising of tobacco products (lobbyists, no doubt). However, I'd still bet that people in Greece and Turkey die far more than we do from smoking...it seems everybody there smokes.
2. One in six Americans dies of high blood pressure: primary cause? too much crap to eat and too much salt in our diets...of course, we have well-preserved corpses when we go.
3. One in three Americans is obese; the reasons for this are widely-known, from too many desk jobs to cutting physical education in school to too many additives in our food. I don't think we'll ever figure this out as a nation. BTW, we have 10 times more obese people than Japan...though I'm not really sure how the populations match up.
4. There are more dentists whitening teeth than fixing them; there are more plastic surgeons that general practitioners; health insurance companies would rather make money than make people healthy; and the economic divide that is ever-growing seems to doom a larger percentage of the population to less-than-adequate health care.
So...where should we move? If you want to be healthy and long-lived, pick one of the following:

1. Japan Men average life expectancy: 79 Women: 86.2
2. Australia Men average life expectancy: 79.1 Women: 83.7
3.Canada Men average life expectancy: 78.2 Women: 82.9
4. Great Britain Men average life expectancy: 77.1 Women: 80.8

Here in the U.S.A. Men average life expectancy: 75 Women: 80.8
Moving to Japan would mean that one would still have baseball (beisbol), and I would suspect many people speak English...
but I think I'm going to take my chances here...if I can find a "blue" state nearby!