That idea always confuses me-we live a lot longer than our ancestors too. There are plenty of arguments for why we should be healthy, but out ancestors--whether you're looking at the ancient norse, romans, asians, africans, or americans, are not a good argument for it, as none of them had an average lifespan close to 70 years.
Also, the video you linked requires permission to view it.
I am figuring out how to make my Facebook videos visible outside of Facebook. I thought I'd set the audience indicator to public, but for some reason, it's not working.
Our ancestors lived shorter lives due to a vast variety of factors. They did have far more active lifestyle - that much is true. However, they were also engaged in brutal wars where the death toll ran into tens of thousands. There were no antibiotics, and alcohol was the only substance available for sterilizing wounds - so, many might have survived the battle but died afterwards from bleeding and infection. Women died in childbirth as did their babies. Quality of life in general varied drastically between countries and, within individual states, between classes.
Today, we have better technology and numerous means to treat illness and injury and prolong one's life. However, we are soft. Our athletes constitute a small, exclusive part of the population, whereas in ancient Sparta and Greece, for example, ordinary people participated in the Olympics, and then went back to their jobs. Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, Hippocrates, Demosthenes were all Olympians in addition to being writers, philosophers, and scientists. They didn't spend 8 hours a day in front of the computer. If they needed to go somewhere, they couldn't just get into a car - they had to walk, run, ride a horse, or ride in a chariot (driving a chariot was a separate skill). So, if you were to take today's average 20-year old and, say, an average 20-year old from the time period between the rise and death of Alexander the Great, the ancient guy would be far more active and physically fit.
