Do presidents age fast in office?
Demographer S. Jay Olshansky has done a study appearing in JAMA which he claims debunks the popular idea that serving as POTUS is so stressful it shortens a person’s life:
Olshansky found that 23 of the 34 U.S. presidents who died from natural causes did not appear to have their lives cut short by the stress of leading the nation. They lived longer than men of their same age and era – and in many instances far longer.
For example, the average age of the first eight presidents at their time of death was 79.8 years – during a time when life expectancy at birth for men was less than 40.
The reason is likely the effects of advanced education and better access to healthcare, Olshansky said.
Well then, why compare them to average men of their day? Why not compare them to men of similar wealth and education and access to healthcare? Probably because that would be a great deal more difficult to find data for, especially concerning the early years of the US.
Olshansky also touches on the popular perception that presidents age visibly in office at a rate greater than normal, although his study didn’t cover that. This phenomenon of accelerated presidential aging has long been observed and remarked on, but I have a different take on it.
I’ve noticed in my own life and among my friends, as well as for public figures, that visible aging doesn’t progress in smooth linear fashion. It advances in fits and starts and discrete bumps.
One year I look around at my friends at the Christmas party and everybody looks pretty darn good. The next year I wonder who all these old folk are. In their thirties and forties the aging process seems so slow and gentle as to be almost stagnant; most people seem to go on and on looking almost like they did in their twenties.
There’s a group who hit the aging wall in their mid-to-late forties, going almost overnight from young to oldish. They’re the canaries in the mine. Another bunch “turn” quite suddenly in their late fifties, with the early sixties a time of particular peril for many.
These periods happens to coincide with the ages of many presidents while in office. I hereby submit that it’s not so much the stress of office—after all, the stresses come with an awful lot of perks, too—but the age of presidents during their administrations that is accountable for some of this perception of accelerated aging in presidents on the part of the public. Most of us would be perceived that way as well, if we were subject to the sort of relentless scrutiny presidents undergo.
Movie stars try to counter this through cosmetic surgery; presidents rarely do. But the way so many of those stars look after the age of 50 makes me think the presidents are wise not to follow suit.
[ADDENDUM: One president who aged a great deal in office was FDR. But he was also the president who was in office longest, over twelve years, and he had some very special health problems that made him different. Even then, most of his aging occurred in the last year or couple of years of his life when he had lost a remarkable amount of weight, not long before his death in office:
Roosevelt, by the way, was a heavy smoker, which may have contributed to his demise.]
Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.
Perhaps if they have wives like this (http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53060899-78/selleneit-michael-pierce-court.html.csp#.Tt6ketws9XU.email)
Always be careful when demographers use life expectancy in the general population as a comparison– the age looks shockingly low. But that’s because of childhood diseases. If a person got past those, he could live to an age reasonably close to the ages we live to today.
Who cares?
you actually cant go by the photo with Stalin and such given the soviet leaders have a tendency to die in the job to be removed…
Stalin kills Trotsky
Stalin kills Kirov
All of Lenins cabinet not dead already are assasinated
Beria kills Stalin
Khrushchev gets Beria killed
Georgy Malenkov executed
Nikita Khrushchev was made a non person and died of a heart attack
people on the left do not live long an healthy happy lives… (not even in the west)
but more important…
watch below and see the ‘room of their own’ and how hard they work…
[and remember i brought this up as far back as when Nike was in the news. but i guess the women of the US want the same cell/room as there is almost no more economy and free society given the politically correct adjustments made by them and other lesser groups]
a room of your own is turning out to be a prison cell… but dont the grey in obamas hair make him look distinguished?
Santa’s Workshop – Inside China’s Slave Labour Toy Factories
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF8jUDzz5bE
remember this is children, not adults…
How many days a week do you work?
seven days
We start at half past six in the morning and work till midnight
Then we do overtime work till two or four
what is produced?
dolls and dogs for Disney…
Compare and contrast them with our people, our young people, and so on.
whether a president ages in office is of no consequence… but how these people work compared to how we work..
BIG CONSEQUENCE
even bigger if we have to compete and maintain ourselves against such.
wondering whether a person who has at most 8 years in the job is getting older, is pretty inane and i guess would fit chitter chatter fence gossip.
so i guess in today feminized society, in which image and age are very important to women… (and mostly irrelevant to men), that we have to focus on meaningless frippery like aging leaders.. and whether actors are getting fatter… or not… or whether models are too thin… or not… or whether the neighbors daughter is getting good grades in pole dancing… (soon to be an Olympic sport?)
today we get suckered straight into the MSM medias message… obama is like FDR, so lets talk FDR… and lets remember pearl harbor… as that is so relevent. but lets also forget the soviets while we do it.
even worse…
lets see what agine presidents, weight prolbems for actors, and other nonsense are more important than?
more important than ex soviet leader gorbachev calling for elections in russia to be done over… that the elections were fixed… and that military flooded moscow to halt protests..
lets ignore hu crowing about using its navy and going to war… wanting taiwan… the new military equipment, the lack of finances for ours, and the new recent revelations of huge nuclear hardened preparations (as russia has made since the 80s as well)
lets ignore north korea starting or rather continuing its war and making balistic missles.
oh.. lets also forget the huge tunnel which 33 tons of marijuna was discovered… wasnt it the chinese communists that perfected such tunnel building? and combine that with the Chavez starting production of dragunov sniper rifles and grenade launchers…
oh.. dont forget to also forget to discuss our morale problem in the military now that sodomy and bestiality is A OK in the trenches.
there are tons of things to discuss that would actually have a bearing and be key and important in the coming months.
the fact that groups of protected classes are attacking the deemed oppressors (From setting Jewish property on fire. to gang attacking random whites/spanish/chinese), and no one is really discussing it much… despite our unjustice department refuses to prosecute them for social justice race reasons (oppressed have a right to class hatred dont ya know)
whether obama uses grecian formula for men should not be one of them..
I’ve long suspected that the “aging in the Presidency” thing was rubbish. Who doesn’t age visibly between, say, 50 and 58, 55 and 63, or 60 and 68?
For example, even for the first of these spans, the hair starts becoming noticeably gray, not just up close, but from a distance, and contributes mightily to the impression of aging.
Note that in the video of the workers..
they point out that 90% of the workers are women
they asked why
“they are easier to manage”
explains a lot as to why move them into industry and get rid of the men…
for the same rason a farmer has only a few bulls and lots of cows
easier to manage animals you own that way
[funny, but they are into darwin, breeding, redistribution to control breeding and demographics, ownership of people, slaves don’t own property… and all that stuff… seems like one big feminist animal farm]
300 to 500 wan per MONTH based on speed…
with over time 800…
which is about 45 to 100 a month US
headlines to ignore discussing aging people who most dont know about nor particularly like…
Fort Hood is now considered workplace violence and not radical islam (i guess it helps the stats on men at work)..
China’s Hu urges navy to prepare for combat
Sasha and Malia Obama’s School Opts For Japanese Food… (i guess to celebrate japan on pearl harbor anniversary)
Police crack down on anti-Putin protests… Police detain opposition leader Nemtsov…
Medicare has spent quarter billion in taxpayer cash on penis pumps… (but obamas hair and age is whats important)
Silent coup in pakistan??!!!!??
hey… all those one country line in the sands places are in play…
Isreal is surrounded by enemies without treaties any more… isolated…
‘Crucified Santa’ removed from courthouse lawn…
More hypodermic needles found hidden in clothing at WAL-MART…
More Americans Move Abroad In Search of Job Opportunities…
NYPD Puts Local Banks on Alert After Parcel Bomb Found in Germany
but go on.
i am fascinated to hear about the aging of people under stress… given that Obama care is rationing care to the elderly, its not going to be as much a problem in the future…
Artfldgr
Georgy Malenkov executed
No, he lived to a ripe old age. At least biological age. Like others who fell from power, dying a political death, he became an unperson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Malenkov