Quote Originally Posted by Jeril View Post
Basically what Gelston said, there is all the excessive eating, drinking, smoking, and drugs. Not to mention we probably have more people who engage in recreational sports.
Well, we can certainly put numbers on drinking and smoking.

Smoking in France, 2010: 30%.
Smoking in the United States, 2011: 19%.
Possible sources of error:
The France figures are 18-75, the US 18+. There are about 18.6m Americans older than 75, so if none of them smoke the 19% would be 19% * 293 / (293 - 18.6) = 20.3%. Not a big problem, especially since there probably are people who smoke and are older than 75.
The definition of "smoker" might be different, and the United States report is the only one to define it. But still, 30% to 20% is a huge gap to even make us even, let alone make us worse.

Drinking in France, 2010: 1 glass of wine (or equivalent) per adult per day. 17% are daily drinkers.
Drinking in United States, 2005: 1 glass of wine (or equivalent) per adult per 12 days. 4% are daily drinkers in 2006.
One possible interpretation is that the Americans who drink drink, while the Frenchman surrenders after a single glass but is back for more the next day. Regardless, the average American drinks less overall and less frequently.

Obviously, statistics on illegal drug use are hard to come by with any certainty. "Excessive" eating is also a tricky one. The marathoner who consumes 3000 Calories of a well-balanced, nutritive diet (kale, tofu, whatever) is doing better by his body than the office worker who consumes 2000 Calories of Big Macs. As you and I have discussed before, it's also not always clear what constitutes a healthy diet. Partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners... there's a lot of stuff out there we're just now learning about as far as the long term effects.

I'm not sure where you're going with the recreational sports angle. American football carries a unique risk of brain trauma, but very few Americans play enough of it to make that trauma lifespan-significant. Blowing out a knee is unpleasant, but again I'm not sure how it would be lifespan-significant.