"...The State of Israel requires every citizen over age 18 to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, although Arab citizens are exempted if they so wish. Men are expected to serve a minimum of 32 months, and women 24 months (until quite recently, women didn’t serve in the same combat roles, so their training was not as physically demanding).When Weinreb, an expert in demography, put together a dataset involving 130 countries, he found that, even after controlling for all sorts of variables, military service added more than three years to male life expectancy.
How to explain that? It may come down to a phenomenon known as the “healthy soldier effect.” At an age when, in most wealthy countries, people stop doing intensive physical stuff, in Israel, you have a large share of people in their 20s carrying 30-kilogram packs uphill for five days, first during their mandatory service, and then during annual reserve duty.
Army training potentially sets a precedent for maintaining physical fitness throughout one’s life, Weinreb said.
“No one in public health wants to say there’s anything good about the military. It may be a necessary evil, but to have mandatory conscription is counter to the Anglo-Saxon political ideology of this era.” It runs counter to the norms of liberalism, he said, and people are loathe to admit that there could be a positive health benefit...."
The article's accounting leaves out the most important factor. Living well (which implies long) is the best revenge.
And yarmulkes. You can't overstate how much habitually wearing a yarmulke promotes longevity.
*The State of Israel requires every citizen over age 18 to serve in the Israel Defense Forces*
I get it. Every American should serve 2 years upon H.S. graduation. Good luck with that one.
Gotta admit it wouldn’t hurt. The top 10% of high schoolers would do basic training in the summer and then serve in the reserves.