Vital Statistics [antikvár]

Introduction How do you shape up alongside the average man and woman? How much exercise do you take and is it the right sort? How often do you borrow books from a library? What sort of television programmes do you watch? How large is your vocabulary? What are the chances of your marriage remaining intact? How well are you feeding yourselP Isn't it really time you gave up smoking? What happens when you do drink 'one for the road'? How fast does your blood pump round your body? How good are you in bed? What are your chances of living to a ripe old age? And how are you likely to leave this world when you go? The answers to these and dozens of similar questions may be unique to you and you alone, but compare yourself and the way you live, with the average person around the world and you will get some idea of how you are faring and what the future might hold in store. In the sections that follow, you can take a check-up from head to toe, looking inside the human body to observe some of its primary functions and then moving outside to see how external forces and the way we treat our bodies affect those functions now and as we get older. You can take a look at the whole planet too, seeing just what the gap between the rich and poor nations really means; you can weigh your own life-style against that of the average man and woman in countries as far apart as Sweden and India. You can find out which nation is the richest, which drives the most cars, which produces the greatest number of children, which is the most densely populated and which has the most comprehensive medical service, to mention just a few topics. In trying to trace the everyday life (and death) of the average human being I have attempted to cover as broad a canvas as data allowed. Where possible I have also tried to draw information from a consistent group of countries. In a number of cases where this has been unavailable, I have made suitable substitutes. Some dates given may appear to be rather old, but the information they refer to is the most up to date available internationally. As you will gather near the beginning, the average man and woman is a figment of the statistician's imagination, but I hope from reading this book you will gain some idea of how he or she might live both physically and socially.