(Sarah Gantz/ The Philadelphia Inquirer) — The health of millennials is deteriorating more rapidly than older generations’ did, and that could have a devastating effect on the American economy, according to a new report by Moody’s Analytics and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
The report paints a dismal picture of how the 2009 economic recession affected millennials’ health.
“This is going to be a very negative, self-reinforcing cycle, and we need to break it,” said Mark Zandi, a chief economist for Moody’s, who spoke recently at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Health of America Forum at the Kimmel Center.
Now ages 23 to 38, millennials suffer from higher rates of physical ailments, such as hypertension and high cholesterol, as well as behavioural health problems such as depression when compared with the generation before them. (…)