Rotunda Project

Life Expectancy

   This project drew my attention the most because of the way it was represented - 2 hearts hanging side by side. Hanging at the bottom of each heart is a see through container which holds an assortment of colorful beads, each representing a birthday. I thought this was a great way to visually show each generation's life expectancy. On the left is our parents' generation - a healthy heart with no flaws, holding an abundance of beads. But, on the right is our generation - a heart with a large gray area, which i assume to be a representation of something like heart disease, holding a significantly smaller amount of beads. This shows that our generation is expected to live a much shorter amount of time. Written in between the hearts is an explanation that says our generation is the first in written history to be expected to live a shorter amount of time than our parents'. This interested me very much, therefore I decided to look up a few more facts on the issue.
   According to The New York Times, obesity can shorten our life expectancy by 5 years. Today's adult life expectancy is 77 years, cut 4 to 9 months shorter than it would be without obesity. This means that obesity is already having an impact on health and will only get worse if we don't stop it! Obesity is already shortening average life spans by a greater rate than accidents, homicides and suicides combined. Overall, I thought this project was great visually and I think she picked a great topic to raise awareness about.