I don't know anything about health policy or sociology, but if I may chime in... It seems to me that "despair" is the difference between expectations and reality. When I was growing up, I was...
I don't know anything about health policy or sociology, but if I may chime in... It seems to me that "despair" is the difference between expectations and reality. When I was growing up, I was always told I'll do better than my parents. That's the "American dream". So if many people were told that, and on the whole, it's not true, it seems to follow that a lot of people will think that they're failures. If you take a snapshot of the economy today, it's really not bad. The kinds of things the middle class are complaining about (no home ownership, no retirement at 65) are quite luxurious in the historical sense. We just don't like the feeling that we're moving backwards. Combine that with historically high wealth inequality and you have a recipe for anger and, dare I say, entitlement.
Whether we can get quality of life up for the masses or not, I've found that low expectations leads to a better outlook on a personal scale. It's true that our parents/grandparents could afford college and a house on an average wage, and I'm not saying that I wouldn't take that deal if we could get it back. But day to day do I think about things in terms of how easy it was for someone else? No, I just make the best decision for myself given my opportunities.
While I don't find this surprising, given the declining state of many things across the world, I wonder what other factors might be at play. In this age group and younger we're also finding a lot...
While I don't find this surprising, given the declining state of many things across the world, I wonder what other factors might be at play. In this age group and younger we're also finding a lot of other "odd" health changes - many related to mental health but not all. Some of these changes are due to exogenous factors (remember when we finally linked BPA to health issues) that are unique to our world as it has existed in the last few decades (also hello technology). But with the proliferation of technology, materials, and other modern conveniences it's going to become increasingly harder to point at a specific object and say "this is causing us health problems". I think these studies can help to direct research and funding to treat these individuals, however, and that can be quite useful from a public health perspective.
I don't know anything about health policy or sociology, but if I may chime in... It seems to me that "despair" is the difference between expectations and reality. When I was growing up, I was always told I'll do better than my parents. That's the "American dream". So if many people were told that, and on the whole, it's not true, it seems to follow that a lot of people will think that they're failures. If you take a snapshot of the economy today, it's really not bad. The kinds of things the middle class are complaining about (no home ownership, no retirement at 65) are quite luxurious in the historical sense. We just don't like the feeling that we're moving backwards. Combine that with historically high wealth inequality and you have a recipe for anger and, dare I say, entitlement.
Whether we can get quality of life up for the masses or not, I've found that low expectations leads to a better outlook on a personal scale. It's true that our parents/grandparents could afford college and a house on an average wage, and I'm not saying that I wouldn't take that deal if we could get it back. But day to day do I think about things in terms of how easy it was for someone else? No, I just make the best decision for myself given my opportunities.
While I don't find this surprising, given the declining state of many things across the world, I wonder what other factors might be at play. In this age group and younger we're also finding a lot of other "odd" health changes - many related to mental health but not all. Some of these changes are due to exogenous factors (remember when we finally linked BPA to health issues) that are unique to our world as it has existed in the last few decades (also hello technology). But with the proliferation of technology, materials, and other modern conveniences it's going to become increasingly harder to point at a specific object and say "this is causing us health problems". I think these studies can help to direct research and funding to treat these individuals, however, and that can be quite useful from a public health perspective.