The Stroke Belt
The proof of Anderson County’s live-hard, die-young culture is in the bread pudding — and the all-you-can-eat fried catfish, the drive-through tobacco barns and the dozens of doughnut shops that dot this East Texas county of about 57,000.
Residents of East Texas, and particularly minorities, often make lifestyle choices, like smoking and eating high-fat diets, that affect their life expectancy. Heavy eating and chain smoking are prevalent in East Texas….
In a community where heavy eating and chain smoking are prevalent, where poverty, hardheadedness and even suspicion hinder access to basic health care, residents die at an average age of 73 — seven years earlier than the healthiest Texans…
Indeed, life expectancy lags across most of East Texas, which lives up to the grim medical nickname the Stroke Belt.
Full article on decreased life expectancy in East Texas.
At first look, the longevity map seems to be correlated with urban residence. Any possibility that what it is really measuring is income?
Isn’t “live hard and die young” among the choices people should be allowed to make.
My first professional job after I got out of graduate school was working as an accountant in Palestine, which is the county seat of Anderson County. Life moves at a slow pace there. Residents of Anderson County may not live as long — but it sure feels longer.
Ordinarily Joe would be right. The only wrinkle here is that the choices you make affect other people once Obama succeeds in socializing the health care system.
The Texas map, longevity 2006, to some extent ethnicity. In rural East Texas areas, as the article indicates, there is a relatively larger proportion of African-Americans in farming communities. By contrast, in the Hill Country, west and north of Austin (the big dark spot in the middle of state), the main land use is grazing, and there are proportionaly much fewer blacks, or Hispanics. The population in rural areas is much older, because the young people left for jobs, and perhaps sicker?
Anyone who has ever spent time in east Texas will know the truth: they have never seen a food item they didn’t want to fry. And forget the green vegetable idea. You count calories in your meal. They count species.
Another backward Texas story? Can’t we give it back to Mexico?