A man lost to addiction. Another to heart disease or stroke. A dad who dies at work, or a young man to suicide. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the individual tragedies of men who needlessly die too young; the stories of each shattering loss, and the devastating impact it has upon family and fiends, reverberate among us. A single death is a tragedy. But when you scale up the epidemic of men’s early death, and worsening health outcomes, to a national perspective, a whole new statistic, even more shocking, raises its ugly head. 4.1 million years. That’s how many years of potential life American men collectively lose, every singe year. It’s an amount of time that is hard to comprehend, but we must learn to, if we are to see the staggering cost of mens deteriorating health, paid by all of us, in the harsh light of day. So what could we do with these lost years? How many amazing monuments could be built? Or groundbreaking discoveries made? How many games of monopoly with family, or date nights with a loved one, or school nativity plays clapped loudly from the audience, or quiet walks in the wildness, have been so needlessly lost, to the sands of time? And it is needless. There is no need for these men to die, and for families, friends, and society, to be ripped apart, and robbed of the tremendous good that having their men stay a little longer, could offer. There is no need for us to be burying our men and boys this young, and at such a massive scale. And yet, instead of taking on the challenge, society is embroiled in nonsense talk of ‘male privilege’, and whines of ‘the patriarchy’, and even talk of ‘making women’s health the priority’. It makes no sense to me. Being male is now the single largest demographic factor behind early death, and if we could bring male and female mortality rates in line with each other, we would do more good than curing cancer. That is the challenge ahead of us, that so many have not even begun to acknowledge. So, what do we all lose from such a needless squandering of life? And what are we going to do about it? ~ Source: AIBM #menshealth #malehealth

2024-08-06