Paul Campos from Aug 1

I thought this was worth having for reference....

( ... )

The average American man is 3 inches taller and 50 pounds heavier than he was at the time of the Civil War ( ... )

the typical Civil War veteran had a body mass index of 23, which put him in the middle of what our public health officials incorrectly label the "normal" range of weight (it was normal to be thin in the 19th century, mainly because so many people were malnourished).

Meanwhile, today's average middle-age male has a BMI of 28, putting him toward the high end of the government's "overweight" category.

Yet middle-age people today are far healthier than their parents were at the same age, who in turn were much healthier than their parents. Rates of most major illnesses, including heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases and many cancers, have plummeted over the course of the past few generations, and continue to fall.

All this flies in the face of endless waves of hysteria about how the average American's weight imperils his or her health. Indeed, the most recent comprehensive study of the issue found "overweight" people had lower death rates than "normal weight" people, and "obesity" did not even begin to correlate with any increased mortality risk until one reached the fattest 6 percent of the population. ( ... )

I also tracked down the Gina Kolata articles Paul Compos referenced.

( .... )

The difference does not involve changes in genes, as far as is known, but changes in the human form. It shows up in several ways, from those that are well known and almost taken for granted, like greater heights and longer lives, to ones that are emerging only from comparisons of health records.

The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments like heart disease, lung disease and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today, according to a federal study that directly measures it. And that is not just because medical treatments like cataract surgery keep people functioning. Human bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before.

Even the human mind seems improved. The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades, and at least one study found that a person’s chances of having dementia in old age appeared to have fallen in recent years.

The proposed reasons are as unexpected as the changes themselves. Improved medical care is only part of the explanation; studies suggest that the effects seem to have been set in motion by events early in life, even in the womb, that show up in middle and old age. ( .... )

Scientists used to say that the reason people are living so long these days is that medicine is keeping them alive, though debilitated. But studies like one Dr. Fogel directs, of Union Army veterans, have led many to rethink that notion.

The study involves a random sample of about 50,000 Union Army veterans. Dr. Fogel compared those men, the first generation to reach age 65 in the 20th century, with people born more recently.

The researchers focused on common diseases that are diagnosed in pretty much the same way now as they were in the last century. So they looked at ailments like arthritis, back pain and various kinds of heart disease that can be detected by listening to the heart.

The first surprise was just how sick people were, and for how long. ( .... )