RECESSIONS ARE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

The Great Depression has a lesson for those of us now in the Great Recession -- it's good for your health..!

The University of Michigan recently completed a study of life expectancy during the 1930s, and arrived at the counter-intuitive conclusion life expectancy in those hard times went up not down. Watching my parents and extended family members struggle through the terrible thirties, I have little anecdotal evidence to support those researchers. But there it is -- if you believe in the signs of the stats, hard times mean mortality rates drop while life expectancy rates spike.

Even without any personal evidence of this conclusion, I find the researchers reporting that in timeS of prosperity (like the 1920s and 1990s) people "are feeling flush with money and so they tend to eat more, drink more, smoke more, drive more and party more, all of which lead to earlier deaths."

Study author Jose A. Tapia Granados notes that in times of depression/recession, "people eat and drink less, sleep more, and spend less time working, making them less prone to industrial accidents. Instead, they tend to seek solace from friends and family members, which could have a protective effect on health."

One is left to ponder the meaning of these statistics. If true, additional extrapolations might be drawn about our current recessionary prospects for raising healthier babies, remaining longer in marriages, and seeking the gratifications of religion. The Michigan researchers have remained silent on these matters. Also on the matter of the American military whose role flies in the face of virtually all these numbers.

You see, while at home the nation -- depression, recession or prosperity -- is one country, it's fighting men and women overseas are another. While we live in the relative comforts of domestic peace and security, hundreds of thousand of our fellow Americans stand at the borders of global conflict and danger. Right or wrong, wise or foolish, these wars are being fought in our name. But by them not us!

In their case, matters of life expectancy or mortality rates have little relevance. They're there and we're here, and this twain almost never meets. Just one more anomaly to deal with as we once more struggle with the recurring national question: What is America....?