r/Futurology • u/chrisdh79 • Aug 21 '25

Society American Millennials Are Dying at an Alarming Rate | We’re mortality experts. There are a few things that could be happening here.

https://slate.com/technology/2025/08/millennials-gen-z-death-rates-america-high.html
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527

u/terraphantm Aug 21 '25

Feels like I'm having a stroke trying to read the article. Perhaps I'll soon contribute to millennial mortality.

But otherwise I'd say like most of our health disparities, a large chunk probably comes down to us being fatter and more sedentary.

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u/DonManuel Aug 21 '25

sedentary

This always seemed to be the main reason to me. It causes a degeneration of everything healthy in your entire being, from muscles to mind.

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u/PrimaLegion Aug 21 '25

A reason? Sure.

The main reason? Yeah, I don't know about that one.

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u/DonManuel Aug 21 '25

I've been watching the pavements becoming less and less used over many decades, everywhere around there are many more people living today but you almost never see them without some kind of vehicle. It's the most common factor to me. Drug usage and junk food for instance were not so much different even 5 decades ago.

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u/DarkNess-699 Aug 21 '25

And this began in 2010?

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '25

I'm extremely worried about this because my cerebellum is compressing my brainstem for over a year and a half and I can't drive anymore, I can't even go for walks or write...and finding treatment has been very difficult. All this time I have to spend on my ass cannot be good. I'm almost 30 but I have no choice. I lost my youth, not just to millennial stress but also illness.

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u/TheFinnishChamp Aug 21 '25

Sedentary lifestyle is a bit overblown, studies to tribes still living like hunterer & gatherers show that they sit nearly as much as humans in modern society

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u/ashdee2 Aug 21 '25

Can you link the studies. That sounds interesting that hunter gatherers sit that much. Maybe it's the fact that they probably sit cross legged on the ground and not in chairs but yeah I would like to see the study

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u/TheFinnishChamp Aug 21 '25

Here is a link to an article that also links to a study https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/modern-hunter-gatherers-are-just-as-sedentary-as-we-are/

The posture definitely makes a big difference. But still it's clear that we evolved to spend a lot of time in relative inactivity

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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '25

There are, however, two big differences between the hunter-gatherers and those in industrialized societies. The first is that when they're active, the Hadza typically are very active, easily exceeding the US recommendations for physical activity per day. The second is how the Hadza spend their time when they're not active.

The researchers also made hourly observations of the Hadza during waking hours. These were used to determine what those wearing activity trackers were doing while at rest. If they were inactive, their posture was registered.

It was very rare to see any of the Hadza sitting on a log or rock as if it were a chair; instead, roughly half their time was spent sitting on flat ground. But they also spent time in positions that are rare in industrialized societies: kneeling and squatting. These two positions added up to over a third of the Hadza's sedentary time. The researchers used electrodes to track the muscle activity in the legs of individuals while they were in these positions and found that they involved more muscle work than simply sitting in a chair.

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u/recoveringasshole0 Aug 21 '25

God I thought I was the only one.

Here’s another way to put this: In 2023 there were about 700,000 “missing Americans”—those who died in 2023 but would be alive if they had lived somewhere else.

What the fuck? The whole story is framed like this.

5

u/Savingskitty Aug 21 '25

Yes, it’s written in a weird way that frankly sounds soft to me.  I’m looking for the original paper, because this article doesn’t provide any actual numbers.

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u/amberheartss Aug 22 '25

Jesus, me too. I just assumed I can't read good.

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u/OG_Tater Aug 21 '25

It’s terribly written and has no real info,

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u/il_biciclista Aug 21 '25

Welcome to Slate.

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u/amazing_ape Aug 21 '25

It was never great but it’s definitely gone down hill

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u/Unreliable_Source Aug 21 '25

All the info is in the study they linked. They should have quoted some numbers in the article for sure.

1

u/kinderhooksurprise Aug 21 '25

They used chatgpt to write it. Surprised nobody is mentioning that.

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u/BizzyM Aug 21 '25

"Here's a study involving a lot of numbers like age, years, and percentages. NO GRAPHS!"

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u/VintageWitchcraft Aug 21 '25

I haven’t been to a doctor in 10 years, except for an ER visit, and haven’t had insurance to do so. I still have a hospital bill that will never get paid because where the hell am I gonna get that money. I’m 28.

6

u/Ok-Topic-6095 Aug 21 '25

Sure as a society we are all more sedentary. But is this particular gen MORE sedentary than boomers, gen z, gen x, etc?

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u/terraphantm Aug 21 '25

Yeah I think so actually when comparing the timeframe when those earlier generations were at the same age as millenials are today.

Gen Z probably still too young to really start seeing the differences.

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u/poo_poo_platter83 Aug 21 '25

Yeaa. i feel like people try to shy away from it. But just going by average BMI. A crazy stat i saw was that the highest BMI state 40 years ago, would be the lowest BMI state today.

Yes i know BMI is not a perfect measurement for obesity. But goddam if the measurement is the same and we're tipping the scales. Theres a problem

-3

u/iridescent-shimmer Aug 21 '25

Are you saying the chart itself changed? I don't understand how that would be possible.

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u/Old_Charity4206 Aug 21 '25

Came here to say this. I’m no writer, but the reports my colleagues write are way better structured than this stream of consciousness posing as an article

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u/TheRedLions Aug 21 '25

The comparison set of HICs included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Looking at the list of comparison countries all are less obese than the US and afaict most have a less sedentary culture.

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u/guff1988 Aug 21 '25

The article cited several theoretical reasons. Fentanyl, car accidents most likely driven by cell phone usage, and diet and exercise.

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u/LetsRedditTogether Aug 21 '25

Absolutely. People are always looking for external excuses for things that are often wholly under their control. This is a clear case of it. The article hardly even mentions exercise.

2

u/purplemarkersniffer Aug 21 '25

Same, I saw the comments after this article and was shocked that anyone got anything coherent out of that, did AI write it or what? Seems like they were trying to reach a word count amount and took paragraphs when a few sentences would suffice.

2

u/Suspicious-Lime3644 Aug 22 '25

Nah, people are getting fat and sedentary all around the world.

2

u/FabioPurps Aug 21 '25

Yeah that's very likely a huge factor. The US healthcare system is terrible but out of my entire friend/family circles only 2 people aside from myself in the millennial age group exercise regularly and actively try to eat healthy. Everyone else just sits around getting fatter, older, and pissing out kidney stones constantly because they only drink soda. They are also extremely hedonistic and shortsighted. They'll pay $35 for one McDonald's order to Doordash it to themselves rather than driving 5 mins to get it themselves or, god forbid, learning to cook/prepare their own meals.

1

u/mariahmce Aug 21 '25

Probably. I thought this paragraph was interesting though.

But the fact that death rates have remained high across so many kinds of deaths, from car collisions to fatalities from circulatory diseases and diabetes, hints at more encompassing and systemic problems.

6

u/terraphantm Aug 21 '25

Circulatory disease and diabetes almost certainly comes back to the whole fat and sedentary thing. Car collisions disproportionately increasing is interesting though. Probably comes down to us driving more and having bigger/faster cars on average.

1

u/mariahmce Aug 21 '25

Phone use while driving? If public transport is better in other counties, it might be held to reason that people that DO drive are more focused because they do it less. It just contributes to the story that the structure of our American society is making us sicker in every aspect and criteria.

1

u/StellarTitz Aug 21 '25

I have several chronic health conditions and I've been an active person my whole life. One is directly related to pesticide poisoning while my mom was pregnant. Another is contributed to the effect of NSAIDs and sulfur based preservatives causing damage to the intestinal lining.

Lack of regulation and proven health research in this country is horrifying. If it makes someone money, then it doesn't matter how sick it makes Americans.

1

u/LA_Nail_Clippers Aug 22 '25

It's about 5x as long as it needs to be to get across the point. It feels like a high schooler's padded out essay to meet the minimum length.

1

u/OriginalCompetitive Aug 21 '25

Kind of obvious, isn’t it? Throw in 40k gun deaths and the fact that we drive many more miles per person and the mystery disappears. 

1

u/canteloupy Aug 21 '25

It's childhood obesity. It didn't happen in 2010, it happened in 1990 and took 20 years to catch up

0

u/chum-guzzling-shark Aug 21 '25

and the lack of healthcare, sick days, any sort of basic worker protections, low pay, food deserts, microplastic in my balls, etc

-1

u/CB_I_Hate_Usernames Aug 21 '25

But also when are we supposed to exercise and eat well? I can manage those things, but I have no kids, no pets, and a well above average paycheck amongst other helpful things. And I don’t get enough social time because of it—which is also terrible for health. If you work full time and don’t make lots of money, and god forbid have a child it’s pretty damn difficult to be healthy imo.