Global life expectancy is rising. We all have more of this same shit to look forward to.

Here's a novel trend: white people in America are losing relative to non-white people in America, in some way. What?? Yes, of course, this trend involves poor and/ or undereducated white people, but still. You don't see that too often. So—why are the white high school dropouts dying younger now?

Women "in large swaths of the U.S." aren't living as long as they were just a generation ago, according to experts who study these things. Maybe the women in these "large swaths" should move to other swaths where women live longer. (Quitting smoking and avoiding obesity are also recommended strategies.) [Image NatalieMaynor/via Flickr.]

Despite being a nation of hideously unhealthy McDonald's addicts who binge drink, text message while driving, and hold Charlie Sheen in high esteem, U.S. life expectancy has reached another all-time high. Babies born in 2009 can expect to live 78 years and 2 months. Go team!

So America's smoking and obesity are wrecking the curve for life expectancy in developed nations? Tough, haters.

Young guys in NYC are always getting shot. Mostly by other young guys! And while you wild 18-34-year-olds just jump in front of bullets like it's a big party, guess who loses? Your municipal life expectancy, that's who.

Neatly encapsulating the prevailing foodie conventional wisdom, science-fearing New York Times contributor Michael Pollan has famously advised America to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He also believes we should eat like our ignorant, backward ancestors ("Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food") instead of like modern human beings. But as regular Gawker readers know, heavily-processed, contemporary American fast food has preserved an inordinate number of its inventors and purveyors well past any reasonable life expectancy. This morning's Times brings word of the death of hamburger chain founder Wilber Hardee at the ripe old age of 89. Granted, he was felled by a heart attack. But he joins no fewer than four other fast food pioneers who have kicked the bucket over the past six months at extraordinarily advanced ages:

Just in time for Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock's new movie, a Wall Street analyst is getting closer to the fast-food companies he tracks by eating only "quick-service" food for all of April. It's halfway through the month; how's he doing? The answer won't be surprising to those who remember how long the founders of Popeyes, Carl's Jr. and Fatburger lived:

In January, Carl Karcher, the founder of the fast food chain Carl's Jr., died at the age of 90. In February, Lovie Yancey, the founder of Fatburger, died at the age of 96. And just yesterday, Al Copeland, the founder of Popeyes Fried Chicken, died at the age of 64. Which is not bad for a man with a lifetime diet of fried chicken! Does this mean that 2008 is a deadly year for our beloved fast food entrepreneurs? No, it means that fast food will keep you alive well past the expected time of your demise. Honor their memories with greasy meat. [Tabloid Baby]