Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Terribly unhealthy?
Vintage.es has a feature on smoking in movies, mainly among female stars in the '20s and '30s. Silents and flappers.
The text says:
While smoking is a terribly unhealthy habit, there’s something about it that automatically makes a person feel cool. Especially when a character is supposed to be rebellious, famous, or just super cool.
I'm old enough now that I can focus on text and numbers when something more interesting is present. This wasn't possible just a few years ago.
Looking at the numbers, it struck me that the lifespans weren't especially short. So I downloaded the page as html, sorted out the dates, and calculated.
The mean lifespan of these 28 "terribly unhealthy" beauties is 76. Median is 80. Their mean birth year was 1911, median 1913.
The official life expectancy for females born in 1911 was 54. As always, this mean was pulled WAY down by child deaths, but even so, 76 was not a "terribly unhealthy" lifespan for people born in those years.
Labels: coot-proofing, NOT blinded by stats
¶ 1:57 AM
