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The audio is out of sync, but this is an interesting discussion about how the overwhelming prevalence of mental and physical illnesses has made people think it's normal to be sick and that "health" just means something like having adequate treatments for all of ones medical conditions.
I'd love to hear from people outside of America about how normalized being medicate is. Are most people typically being medicated for something?
I can't watch the video right now, but do they also talk about mental health?
I also think people are increasingly treating any kind of mental distress as a medical condition, to be treated by drugs or other medical interventions, or behavioral specialists. Just like physical health can be improved with better diet, more exercise, etc, I think mental health can be improved with better "mental diet"--what you consume and think about--and mental exercise, i.e. engaging in hobbies or activities that help you relax.
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Yes, mental health was in the original title, but I had to trim it for SN length.
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by the way, I'm at an academic conference on climate risk and economic impacts right now... you can imagine how I'm feeling, haha. I'm mainly here because I was invited to discuss a paper
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Haha. "Hey everyone, look what happens when I jam this invalid model into another invalid model. Scary stuff!"
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Sat through a 100-page paper showing with great detail that people move after experiencing a wildfire
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Ha! That sounds like research I might have done. (not literally, just that sort of thing)
I think the rest of the world is catching up to the US in terms of health, and so probably in terms of the use of pharmaceuticals. I've been to Mexico recently, my guess is that the rate of being overweight is roughly similar to in the US. And there's tons of junk food around everywhere.
Also, you know people are really unhealthy when mainstream ads, for regular people, feature people that are very overweight.
In Mexico City, all the Amazon Prime ads have as model a very overweight lady.
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My recollection is that Mexico is one of the fatter countries. I wonder if it translates to the same rates of disease though. Perhaps they get more sun, physical activity, less exposure to weird food additives, etc.
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I will say one thing for Mexicans - one thing they DON'T do as much, is give their kids phones, at restaurants, to shut them up.
I was thinking approvingly of this, as I first noticed it. Then I saw a family with 2 kids in a restaurant, and both of the kids (around age 7 and 9) were watching 2 separate upright large tablets, and had their plates in front of the tablet.
I thought, disappointed, "well, so much for the whole 'Mexican's don't sedate their kids with screen time' theory".
But then I heard this family talking. And though they looked Mexican, they had obviously been in the US their whole lives, because they had zero accent.
So my theory stands. For the time being, anyway. There's still tons and tons of phone usage, just that particular case seems to be less common.
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I find what I'm reading surprising. I'm from South America and that happens here sometimes, although it depends on each country and the person who takes or believes that a medicine will heal them. It's very interesting to know this about the United States.
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