Life Expectancy
Life expectancy is always a fun statistic for the media to throw out of nowhere to either scare you or make you feel safe. After all - what’s more reassuring than hearing your life expectancy is 76 when you’re 25? However, when you’re past “middle aged” they can give you a scenario that paints a very bleak picture.
Here’s a life expectancy calculator on MSN. But how accurate is that? An article on WebMD asks “Is Life Expectancy Overestimated?” The article is about a year old, but still relevant.
You don’t need me to tell you that you can live the healthiest life possible, and see a nice high life expectancy and then be hit by a bus.
Like the WebMD article mentions most of the numbers you see come from a “mortality life table”. That is, it’s not exactly the same formula they use to figure out life expectancy from birth, something I learned many moons ago in a statistics class in college that can return quite odd results as you get older. For example, you can receive a negative number once you reach a certain (very high) age.
Is there a point to any of this? Well, just try and live well, good or bad society-related numbers mean nothing to you, the individual.
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