> When there is a huge disparity between the USA and other countries (eg on prevalencd ADHD, or on obesity and diabetes) or USA now and before, it is a sign that the problem is upstream — often having to do with corporations, diet, and societal changes.
That is only one possible explanation.
For example an underdeveloped country might appear to have lower prevalence of dementia than a more developed country. Perhaps because the former lacks effective nationwide medical diagnostic abilities, or perhaps because fewer in their population make it to old age where the disease shows up, or perhaps because they have a religious belief that conflates it with devilry so it goes unreported. In all of those situations the ground truth prevalence could be exactly the same in both countries, yet the developed country would report higher rates of the disease than the underdeveloped country.
If your society has you working on a small farm as a child instead of going to school and doing knowledge work, of course ADHD will be underreported. That doesn't mean it's not present.
There may be some causation from ADHD to obesity, I can't say, but otherwise they are categorically different issues.
Well, there can be various explanations, but France is not an underdeveloped country, neither is Finland. Their medical systems do report ADHD, although they might not so zealously overdiagnose it. French parents are more involved with their children, have far lower divorce rates, and work shorter hours than USA. Having "no time" is a point of national pride in the USA and there are even crass commercials that dial up the capitalism memes to an 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8
Here are possible reasons why kids have ADHD:
1) The world is far more fast-paced. ADULTS haven't fared much better, and you'd hardly argue that everyone is genetically predisposed to having the attention span of a goldfish... it's clearly a societal thing: https://www.wyzowl.com/human-attention-span
2) Technology affects society. Corporations are incentivized to put ever more ads in front of you, and now we all have cell phones in our pocket, connected to the internet at all times. Being distracted at dinner, notifications you have to check to make sure it's not important, etc.
3) Now that people can be reached anytime by their phone, any SMS or email causes anxiety that maybe it's from your boss, etc.
4) Even the tools that HN loves so much are often detrimental. Real-time is a gimmick, and studies show that Slack, etc. is actually worse for mental well-being and productivity overall. Here is a recent NYTimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/23/magazine/cal-...
Again, ALL THESE THINGS are related to how capitalism and technology affects society and all of us. The very things that we are Hacker News are involved in, and we can do something to make a better world. Instead of saying that people deserve to be medicated. 1 in 4 middle aged women is on antidepressants ... what's more compassionate -- finding out the underlying reasons and building a better dating site for instance, or just assuming that's the new norm and selling as many pills as they will buy?
That is only one possible explanation.
For example an underdeveloped country might appear to have lower prevalence of dementia than a more developed country. Perhaps because the former lacks effective nationwide medical diagnostic abilities, or perhaps because fewer in their population make it to old age where the disease shows up, or perhaps because they have a religious belief that conflates it with devilry so it goes unreported. In all of those situations the ground truth prevalence could be exactly the same in both countries, yet the developed country would report higher rates of the disease than the underdeveloped country.
If your society has you working on a small farm as a child instead of going to school and doing knowledge work, of course ADHD will be underreported. That doesn't mean it's not present.
There may be some causation from ADHD to obesity, I can't say, but otherwise they are categorically different issues.