Wednesday, September 16, 2026 | Edition 195 | Item #1

We’re people pleasers here at TNSB so we’re glad when research has a little bit of something for everyone. Such is the case with a new Sightlines report from the Stanford Center on Longevity. Asked to settle the argument of whether Americans are engaging in more healthy behavior or more unhealthy behaviors these days, the eager to please researchers have come back with the only possible answer: both sides are right.

According to the report, on average not much has changed since 2007, the beginning of the study period, but that average masks a polarization in how people are approaching healthy behaviors. Over the last two decades, an increasing number of people, 44% versus 33%, are engaging in multiple healthy behaviors such as consuming fruits and vegetables, exercising or getting adequate sleep. At the same time, the number of people engaging in multiple unhealthy behaviors such as a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, drinking or eating fast food has also increased, from 39% to 44%. We are becoming both more healthy and more unhealthy at the same time.

Here is the kicker: it’s older adults (over the age of 65) who are mainly driving this divergence. The increase in the number of older adults who engaged in multiple healthy behaviors and avoided unhealthy behaviors climbed from 29.7% to 36.6%, while the share in the high risk quadrant (high numbers of unhealthy behaviors and low numbers of healthy behaviors) also grew from 15.9% to 24.8%.

It is not entirely clear why the behavioral gaps are happening, but income disparities are certainly implicated. The researchers note “plunging” smoking rates among wealthy Americans but steady or even increasing smoking rates among those in the lowest income levels. The same dynamics are observed around weight and BMI (body mass index). It wasn’t always this way: in 2007, at the beginning of the study period, patterns of unhealthy behavior were largely the same across income groups but have widened significantly over time.