Read an article today about why Americans think alcohol has health benefits and it's apparently another "well the French are healthy and they do X so it's healthy to do X."
So here's your periodic reminder that France (and Italy, and Sweden, and Japan, and basically every country you've seen in a "this country is so healthy, what's their secret?" headline) has universal health care.
The secret is access to health care. It's always access to health care.
And of course access to health care goes hand-in-hand with other social safety nets. Turns out people are healthier when they are food and housing secure, have better labor protections, have better support in early childhood and better support as parents of young children, etc.
The thing is that those things rather by definition are not consumer products that can be sold in the US market, so they don't get media campaigns and catchy headlines about how you can buy them for $20.
I recently read that this is the origin of the idea that breastfeeding is healthier than formula: people who can afford to stay home and breastfeed can afford other nice things too. I felt really stupid for never having realized that before.
(I'm prepared to feel stupid again if it was you who mentioned that before and I'm explaining it back to you now...)
I don't know if there's a name for this specific cognitive error, where it's easier to attribute an effect to a thing you're consuming than to other stuff that correlates with consuming that thing, but it's a darn good one.
@nuthaven It's called confounding bias, but it doesn't apply here AFAIK. Breast milk is healthier for many reasons such as that it contains maternal antibodies that help protect the baby against infections. Do you know of studies disproving this ?
@curiousmind It can still be confounding bias, even if the confounding factor just exaggerates the effects
The known health benefits of breastfeeding are amplified in studies by the factors mentioned by Evan
A good study would correct for that though
@nuthaven