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People love to give advice about being healthy. There is, especially this time of year, no shortage of attractive people with six-pack abs who will gladly tell you the best way to improve your well-being. The problem is that they all contradict each other. You have to do keto but also be vegan. Cardio is important—but resistance training is where it’s at. Get enough sleep, but also drink lots of coffee, get up early to take an ice bath, and remember to never use your phone after 8pm—unless you you should make sure that you keep in touch with friends and family, as well as stay. up to date breathing techniques to prevent anxiety.
The thing about all this health advice is that it’s flawed. While there are certainly things we can all do to improve our health, a surprising number are directly out of our control. In many cases, the extent to which you can easily improve your health is limited by factors you cannot change, from genetics to where you live (“Blue Zones” may be they’re fake, but your immediate environment still matters) where you lived as a child (there is, for example, a long-term association between childhood asthma and being near motorways) to other decisions that your parents are what they did and the weaknesses they had (for example, children of incarcerated parents are at risk of experiencing a range of negative health outcomes).
Outside of the things you can’t change, the single biggest thing we know can affect your life is actually very simple: money. There are thousands of ways that income affects your health and well-being—from young children, like whether you live in a city with sidewalks where it’s safe to run, to more important, such as whether there are enough doctors in your area to treat all the people who need help. Money gives you the ability to travel if you need to see a specialist, as well as the ability to take long breaks from work during the day. Studies show various health benefits of money. To quote: Wealthy people are less likely to develop diabetes, and when they do, the consequences are often less severe. Having a low-paying job is strongly associated with lung disease later in life, in part because sitting at a desk exposes a person to fewer things that cause lung problems.
How much money do you need to enjoy its health benefits? It might be less than you think. One study found that an 18-year-old in the US with a family income below the poverty line was expected to live to 67, while a teenager of the same age whose family income was three times the poverty line would live over 77. In 2023 the poverty line of $20,440 according to the Department of Health and Human Services, that’s a difference of $40,000 per a year for another ten years of life. We don’t know well how wealth protects against some risks, but we know that overall good health is a very good way to improve your health and prolong your life. Sure, having a lot of money can allow you to buy supplements that may not do anything, but often allow you to stay healthy in small, mundane ways.
All of this makes it difficult to take many health advice that affects people seriously. Eight hours of sleep a night is much better than five, but it’s also much easier to do if you work a well-paid desk job instead of working shifts for low pay. It’s easy to tell people they need to improve their diet, but it’s useless advice to a single mother of two who lacks time to think and plan meals. Also, everyone knows that it is good to sleep and eat well. It’s not that it’s hard to figure out which habits are healthy – it’s just that it’s much easier to implement them if you have the money to spare. Losing weight can be good for your health, but it’s very difficult if you live in a food desert or can’t afford medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro. Having time to exercise and meditate is a wonderful thing, as is being able to turn off at night. All the small changes that can improve your life are very difficult when you have to work with a tight budget and little free time.
I’m not saying you can’t do anything cheap to improve your life. The most important recommendations – don’t smoke, drink less alcohol, eat less caloric food, and walk as much as you can – can be done in some way by everyone. But the idea that you can completely change your life is a reality for only a few people. When it comes to fitness, yes indeed it helps win the genetic lottery—and the real lottery again.
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