How to Prevent Preventable Death
The truth about Americans is that we die old.
Statistically, by the time our arteries really harden (along with our skin, our gut and everything else), it will probably be a welcome thing. We’ll be pickled and wrinkly, the burden of family or whatever immigrant group is staffing retirement homes by then. Most of us die in our 70s from Heart Disease, Cancer or Stroke. If we last longer, we get Alzheimer’s or Pneumonia or a combination of the two.
Of course, there are exceptions to this morbidly unfair generalization. But these exceptions are aberrations, undeserving of my vigilant worrying. These exceptions are ruses, canards like the random overly televised kidnapping of a blond girl by a stranger , which helps us forget that family members perpetrate most (if statistically not all) kidnappings, and the random crane accident, which lets us imagine that we are in constant, incalculable danger.
We aren’t in constant, incalculable danger. The dangers are very calculable. 1 in 5 of us will die from Heart Disease while one in 538,523 will perish because our pajamas caught on fire and only 1 in 1,884,832 of will give up the ghost (a great euphemism for dying I just learned thanks to MS Word’s Thesaurus) to the cruel hand or in the sparkly clutches of fireworks.
While we waste a lot of worry on strangers, minorities and mustached foreigners, we do a much better job of killing ourselves than any foe ever could. However, our brains are trained or bred to find exceptions, which is why sudden, tragic deaths take up so much newsprint. But I’ve recently figured out, through extensive and fruitless worrying, that a focus on unexpected death is connected to our tendency towards playing the victim. It’s a tendency that we learned as kids when crying and whining got out of everything from detention to homework to Vietnam.
So, I ask you to get over the fear of the unknown and take ownership of the body you were given. Only you can prevent your preventable death.
Together, let’s look at the leading causes of preventable death. Let’s focus on the obvious instead of anomalous. And please do so while wearing your seatbelt, not smoking a cigarette and sipping wheatgrass.
1. Smoking
Smoking kills over 400,000 people a year without having to secure a visa or sneak into your unlocked windows. Most people start smoking when they’re too young to conceive of death (or the amount of money they would accumulate by investing all the money they will spend on cigarettes into an interest-bearing account).
But some real live, over thirty-year old adults still smoke. Now, there’s nothing more pointless than trying to explain an addiction out of someone who is addicted. It’s like trying to convince a cat to sit and stay or a dog to cover its poop. But for these smokers own good, I ask that you shun and mock them as much in anyway you possibly can.
If mockery and shunnery doesn’t work, I advise that smokers give up the tobacco and pick up alcohol or illegal drugs. Statistically (according to my incompetent analysis) those vices are much safer.
2. Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity
Evolution has given us taste buds and it really isn’t fair. From Biggie fries to fried cheese to Buffalo Wings there is far too much goodness we can put in our mouth. There are also a lot a strange diseases and syndromes that stricken us over time due to our genetics and chronic over-indulgence.
365,000 people die in the US every year because they are out of shape, not to mention all the sex that doesn’t happen because of food comas and fast-food breath.
I prescribe moving near a farmers market and walking there. I prescribe stairs, if possible, swimming, lots of brown rice, and all the broccoli you can eat. And I really can’t say much more because I have about a fifth of my own weight I need to lose to get my BMI down to the proper level.
Smoking and eating are the two leading causes of preventable death. Nothing else comes close statistically. So spend anything you have—time, money, good deeds—to get these consumption issues under control and then you’ve earned the right to worry about the rest of this list, which offer even more stupid fun than smoking and eating.
The following things also kill you faster than smoking and drinking, which explain why, in general, we are much more cautious when it comes to them.
3. Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol consumption kills about 85,000 people a year, appropriately about the size of a decent crowd at an NFL game. The real tragedy is those alcohol takes out through drunk-driving accidents. But you know that.
4. Microbial Agents
Microbial agents resulted in 75,000 deaths. These, I think, are viruses and bacteria and infections. So, wash your hands and never ever play with feces.
5. Toxic Agents
Toxic stuff kills about 55,000 Americans a year. I imagine this mostly accidental stuff. But I sternly advise you to avoid anything toxic.
6. Motor Vehicle Crashes
Crashes result in about 43,000 deaths a year. Speeding is the number one cause of accidents and will be discussed in more detail in a future post about things that may be worth dying for.
7. Incidents Involving Firearms
29,000 deaths by firearms a year. If you have a gun, you’re inviting danger into your life. I assume you’d have to have a good reason for this.
Guns and teenaged boys especially don’t mix. Homicide is the second leading cause of death in males from 10-24 behind accidents. I think even the staunchest NRA member would agree that guns require maturity and safety provisions and a number of other things that most teenagers aren’t capable of.
8. Sexual behaviors
Sex kills about 20,000 Americans a year. Condoms are smart. Testing for diseases is smart. But talking about sex makes all of these things possible. I suggest you talk about sex and safe sex as often as you can, especially when it will embarrass someone. Let no one die of shame.
9. Illicit Use of Drugs
There are around 17,000 deaths from illegal drugs each year. With less than half of 2008 over, over 22 billion dollars has already been spent in the War on Drugs. Now I’m stupid, but based on my calculations we’ve already spent more than a million dollars for every person who will die this year because of illicit drug use.
I think we’re mature enough as a society to recognize that having to resort to war is a failure in itself. Also, you should only go to war if you can win. I doubt we’re ever going to “win” against drugs.
Declaring victory on the drug war by focusing on drug treatment (and starting a cable channel only about interventions and rehab) would save more lives and prevent more accidental, risky pregnancies (while entertaining more people) than abstinence education.
So how about we drop the war metaphors and trade it for something more logical and empowering, like a Marathon Against Slow Suicide or a Pleasant Stroll Against Microbial Agents or an Anti-Smoking Dance-a-thon. It might actually prevent a lot of death, and the life you save, as James Dean once suggested, may be your own.
If you want to read more about what you don’t need to worry about , I suggest this excellent article “How Americans Are Living Dangerously” by Jeffery Klugger.
Or if you just want to know when you’re going to die, check the Death Clock.