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by ben_w 348 days ago
> Since the US has by far the sickest human population on Earth (it's not even debatable), I guess the current system has been a spectacular failure

I suspect everyone affected by the sub-Saharan AIDS epidemic would disagree very strongly, even despite the improvements over the last 20 years.

More generally, the US may be an outlier among industrialised nations, but the floor for health in general is much lower than the USA.

This also means you have a long way further to fall if you allow incompetent leadership.

1 comments

I don't think you will find any other country where the obesity rate and diabetes rate is as high as in the US.
USA is 13th for obesity rate according to the WHO in 2022, with Egypt at rank 12, Qatar at 11, and Kuwait at 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r...

If you focus on obesity-related deaths, the USA is even further down the charts, as somehow even Palestine (albeit in 2021, but still) manages to get a higher percentage of those than the USA: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-obesity?t...

For diabetes rates, the USA (10.7%) isn't just lower than Egypt (20.9%), but also is also lower than Mexico (16.9%), and far short of the worst, which is Pakistan (30.8%): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/diabetes-prevalence?tab=c...

Each of Egypt, Qatar, and Kuwait are worse than the USA on both measures simultaneously.