My first reaction to the well-known decline in longevity among economically disadvantaged white people was - obesity! Good grief, we see tremendously overweight people every day, people who are a hundred or two hundred pounds overweight. I seldom saw such obesity as a young person, and especially, in public school, I remember only one obese student. The fat kids were svelte by today's standards.

You can't live to eighty if you weigh 300 pounds.