This one country will soon have the longest life expectancy in the world — by a lot
Congratulations are in order — we’re living longer than ever before! But don’t get too excited, America — in fact, your future stats aren’t all that wonderful. There is definitely one country that has the longest life expectancy, and unfortunately, you’re not it.
Imperial College London and the World Health Organization looked at 35 countries and analyzed them to predict how long their citizens should expect to live by the year 2030. Not only did each country improve from past statistics, but the life expectancy gap between men and women closed up a bit.
But it was South Korea that had the most impressive stats.
“They are better at dealing with hypertension and have some of the lowest obesity rates in the world,” Professor Majid Ezzati said in an interview with BBC News.
That’s definitely a big reason for them to celebrate! In general, South Koreans can expect to live, on average, a little bit past 90 when 2030 hits.
Now, the bad news.
The United States was predicted to have one of the lowest life expectancies of all of the “rich” countries studied. Citizens can expect to reach the age of 80 for men and 83 for women. Ezzati thinks one of the reasons might be the lack of universal health insurance, a big factor that sets the country aside.
“It is the first country that has stopped growing taller, which shows something about early life nutrition,” Ezzati noted.
After South Korea, women have been predicted to have the longest life spans in France, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and Australia.
Meanwhile, Canada, Netherlands, and New Zealand ranked in the top five for men.
All in all, the study is pretty eye-opening. Hopefully, the United States can work on making some big changes — including the access of proper insurance — in order to rank much higher among the healthier countries in the future.
