Skiing/Snowboard = long life?

[LeeW]

Picked this up from Colorado Ski Country organization (they're great, btw!):

Did you Know...?

Those who ski and live in Colorado have long known winter sports are

some of the best ways to maintain an active, healthy lifestyle, and now

the proof is in the powder.

A recently released Harvard study shows the top seven U.S. counties

with the greatest average life expectancy, 81.3 years, are all in Colorado

- Clear Creek, Eagle, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Park and Summit.

Coincidentally, these mountain communities are also home to 10 ski resorts,

further proof that skiing and snowboarding help people live a long and

healthy life.

[Fastskiguy]

You know, I'm a little surprised, I mean, there's not much oxygen and the sun is so strong. Kinda dry too. Sorta the reverse of here (Chicago-lush (sometimes humid!), lots of O2, filtered sunlight). Maybe it's just that people there *want* to live longer and people here....well....

[D-Sub]

LMFAO what a fabrication!

They completely disregard the fact that those are mostly quite affluent counties as well, which means people have more money for health care.

advertising =

[Fastskiguy]

LMFAO what a fabrication!

They completely disregard the fact that those are mostly quite affluent counties as well, which means people have more money for health care.

advertising =

You know, you remind me of my brother-in-law (which is a good thing)

You don't live in Florida, do you??

[Mike T]

Less pollution don't hurt... and people who live in the mountains do tend to be more active.

[D-Sub]

You know, you remind me of my brother-in-law (which is a good thing)

You don't live in Florida, do you??

I can't help but think that no matter what you're being facetious. No...don't live in Florida. Opposite coast ;)

Its just funny...its like sayin "people in beverly hills live longer!"

[Chris Houghton]

So we need average net worth vs life expectancy by county, and we can solve this issue. I think D-Sub is right.

[pebu]

Maybe we need to look at obesity vs. location.

[Fastskiguy]

There was an article in Scientific American a little about this-the study compared health for the rich and for the poor-people would declare where they fell in the socioeconomic strata by picking a rung from a 10 rung ladder. They tried to correct for obesity and lifestyle differences like smoking and diet, they tried to correct for the differences in healthcare due to not having as much money. Interestingly, that even corrected for all of that stuff, people who felt they were low on the socioeconomic ladder actually were less healthy. They theorized that the stress of being poor, or actually the stress of thinking that you're poor, actually increased the risk of disease. Which kinda makes sense. The stress of thinking about which carving deck to buy is just a lot different than the stress of maybe not eating dinner tonight or having a place to stay next week.

[pebu]

You gotta remember though, the people they declare as "poor" are usually far from it. The average "poor" family has something like 3 tvs, cable or satellite tv, 1 car, etc, etc... Yes, there are some actually poor people, but the people that think they are poor, the people the government thinks are poor and the actual poor may or may not be totally separate people..

[bumpyride]

What's the ratio of rich people to poor people in these "Wealthy Enclaves"?

We all know that it takes a bunch of poor people to take care or rich. Let's figure out the numbers.

1. One to wipe their noses when they get runny.

2. To clean the hankys after they're full of snot.

3. To put the hankys back in the dressers when they're clean.

4. Someone to pick them up from the airport because they don't know how to drive in the snow.

5. To pack all their bags and skis into their house (rooms).

6. To take care of their spoiled rotten bastard kids because the only parenting skills they have are to buy things.

7. To buy things for their spoiled rotten bastard kids because they don't have the slightest clue as to their likes or dislikes.

8. Caretaker, because they don't know how to light a fire, turn on the hotwater, work the stove, use a snowblower, unplug the toilet cause they're so full of ----

9. Police because they attract the criminal element that would love to get into their houses.

10. Restaurant employees to cook, serve and wipe their runny noses in the restaurant and take the abuse they give out to the "POOR"

11. Ski and snowboard instructors giving private lessons, because they're too rich to be in a ski school.

12. Dirt bag ski and snowboarders that can fly and only remind them they can't buy everything.

I could go on, but I'm very polite for a poor person.

[Cindy Kleh]

I live in one of those counties (Grand), and I'm not counting on a really long life. Snowboarding the gnarly gives me a better chance of hitting a tree or falling off a cliff. But in my mind, it's not the length of my life that matters, it's the intensity. I've already lived about 3 lives compared to the average stiff in his/her 9-5'ers battling daily traffic in Atlanta.

[willywhit]

bumpyride,

that was great.

Maybe the people up in summit county just live happy joyful lives.

The vibe on most hills is so different during the week versus the crowded hectic weekends when all the tweakers show up.

"Rich" is a relative relative term.

:rolleyes:

there's a better version of this story but it's all I could come up with on short notice, you get the idea. Anyone have the full version ?

One day a man was enjoying fishing when someone told him to buy another fishing pole so he could catch more fish. Now that he could catch twice as much he took the extra fish, sold them to the store and bought more poles. He kept doing this until he bought a boat. Then with the boat he went out to sea and caught even more fish, sold to store, made even more money. He then created a company, adding more boats, more fish and more money…

One day he sold his fishing empire to someone and made a lot of money. Afterwards, he went back to the dock and kept fishing with just his one pole…

edit: here it is :p

The Mexican fisherman

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "only a little while."

The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then?"

The American laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions.. Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

[queequeg]

That was awesome Willy.

bumpyride,

that was great.

Maybe the people up in summit county just live happy joyful lives.

The vibe on most hills is so different during the week versus the crowded hectic weekends when all the tweakers show up.

"Rich" is a relative relative term.

:rolleyes:

there's a better version of this story but it's all I could come up with on short notice, you get the idea. Anyone have the full version ?

One day a man was enjoying fishing when someone told him to buy another fishing pole so he could catch more fish. Now that he could catch twice as much he took the extra fish, sold them to the store and bought more poles. He kept doing this until he bought a boat. Then with the boat he went out to sea and caught even more fish, sold to store, made even more money. He then created a company, adding more boats, more fish and more money…

One day he sold his fishing empire to someone and made a lot of money. Afterwards, he went back to the dock and kept fishing with just his one pole…

edit: here it is :p

The Mexican fisherman

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "only a little while."

The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then?"

The American laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions.. Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

[Kirk]

That was awesome Willy.

Agreed!

Priorities...perspective

[Steve Prokopiw]

Andora,a tiny little mountain country in Europe, has the worlds highest age expectancy.I have a feeling income level has little to do with it there.Other than those who can pay ridiculous prices for medical care..in this country we have made it so what people of lesser incomes can afford and are encouraged to buy to eat is junk with no nutritional value thus leading to increased need of health care they cannot afford.Of course we have great medical care for those who can afford it but if it were not for smoking and the poor eating habits of most of our society we wouldn't need half of it. The health surveys that show mountain areas having high life expectancies are counting locals who actually reside there.While certainly there is some affluent population in these areas most of the actual residents are working jobs that serve the wealthy but are still having enjoyable lives and a higher level of physical activity than average while doing that. Where I live though,most are out on ATVs littering and throwing their cig butts and beer cans wherever they please so I'm not sure it's just the mountains that do it...

[bumpyride]

Actually how many rich people declare the Mountain areas as their primary residence, leaving the less than rich to grovel for their existance?

I'm going back to quality of life, environment, ability to enjoy their rustic surroundings, physical fitness and no big city suck your life out before your time factors as the longevity key.

[kjl]

This article should be required reading for anybody interested in scientific studies, correlation between different statistics, etc.

D-Sub is right on: people who have a glass of wine every day live longer than those who don't, but that means absolutely nothing about wine and health; people who drink a glass of wine every day are just a fundamentally different slice of the population than those who don't - they may make more money, it may indicate that they appreciate the finer things in life and are more stress-free, less likely to be binge drinkers because people who drink 40's of malt liquor probably don't also have one glass of wine a day, all of which will skew the studies one way or the other.

There's a great paragraph on page 6 of that article: they were testing a drug to prevent heart attacks, and found that 15% of those who followed doctors orders strictly and took the pills regularly died, but 25% of those who did it sporadically died (which would seem to indicate that faithful adherence to the drug schedule improved survivability). However, only 15% of those who took placebos regularly died, as opposed to 28% of those who took placebos sporadically. Which means simply that the kinds of people who follow doctor's orders strictly are just fundamentally different than people who don't, and apparently are generally healthier than those who don't (and the drug's effect was minimal).

The moral of the story being to approach all supposed cause-and-effect correlations in statistics you experience or hear in the news with healthy skepticism; they may not have an agenda, and they may not be skewing numbers, but it is still very difficult to pull out true connections as opposed to incidental correlation. e.g. are snowboarders really bigger jerks than skiers, or is it just that snowboarders skew younger, and teenagers are more likely to be jerks than 40 year olds?

Sorry, I geeked out. I love this kind of stuff.

[John E]

1. One to wipe their noses when they get runny.

2. To clean the hankys after they're full of snot.

3. To put the hankys back in the dressers when they're clean.

Bumpyride - a concrete example of your tale:

I used to go to Vail fairly often but hadn't in years. About 2 years ago we went back & stopped in Two Elk Lodge for lunch. As we entered, there was a nicely dressed older woman standing just inside the door holding a tissue box offering to each customer "Tissue - Tissue". We got a real chuckle out of "The Kleenex Lady".

If you have never been to Vail, it is VERY upscale. Vail real estate has skyrocketed in the last decade.

How far would one have to commute to be able to afford to make a living being "The Kleenex Lady"?

[Steve Prokopiw]

37 miles to be exact..After renting for several years in West Vail , Gypsum is where we lived so we could have a yard and a dog.

[LeeW]

Whoa. 12 hours ago, I simply posted what I saw and thought Id pass it on to this forum, and it exploded and end up something else. Hmm. Im just passing along what I read.

[bumpyride]

We're bored.

[Erik J]

LeeW for president!

[tahoetrencher]

Dogs live longer above 6000' too.

Up here large dogs (80 lbs+) regularly live 13-14 years.

In the last 25 years I've known more than a few to go 16!

I'm told that's longer than normal?

How do the Flatlander stats compare?

Dogs live longer because they love it up here:

They play harder and sleep better (no stress).

No Money means No Money problems.

Your golf ball goes farther,

You get to rig a smaller kite and

you get to carve faster with less wind resistance.

O K

I made the last one up.

But going forty in the powder makes

One greedy for life.

:)

[D-Sub]

Whoa. 12 hours ago, I simply posted what I saw and thought Id pass it on to this forum, and it exploded and end up something else. Hmm. Im just passing along what I read.

Why butt-hurt, Lee? No one said you're an idiot for posting it, or even addressed you directly.

do you expect people to just read what you post and not comment? Pretty sure that aint gonna happen especially on the BOL knitting circle! You do it, too! It's what forums are for, eh?

didn't really explode. you posted something, people posted response.

:)