Steve Jacob 
If you're happy and you know it ...
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
My late mother was fond of saying, "If you have your health, you have everything."
Her implication, of course, was that material wealth is immaterial to happiness. If you are not disabled or in pain, you should be happy. It is hard to argue with that logic.
In the vernacular of economics, health is classified as a "super good" for which there is an incessant and a virtually inelastic demand. That might help explain that sector's wallet-busting annual inflation rate.
Carol Graham, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the book Happiness and Hardship: Opportunity and Insecurity in New Market Economics, points out that the link between health and happiness is statistically stronger than that of happiness and income. Traumatic health events such as onset of a chronic condition or permanent disability have a negative, and often irreversible, effect on happiness.
That seems to be stating the obvious. But some economists and scientists would beg to differ. It turns out that the link between health and happiness appears a lot more complicated.
In a recent study, researchers at the University of Edinburgh say 50 percent of a person's level of happiness is genetic. If you are sociable, emotionally stable and proactively productive, you are likely to be wired for joy. The researchers compared the personality traits of identical twins with other twins and concluded that happiness was in fact a result of those genetically encouraged characteristics.
Sonja Lyubornirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California and author of The How of Happiness, agrees with that 50 percent figure but contends that only 10 percent of happiness is based on one's level of health or wealth.
Many psychologists believe everyone has a happiness "set point" to which each of us returns after life-changing events, such as an unexpected windfall inheritance or personal bankruptcy.
So if genes, health and wealth still do not completely account for happiness, what else does? It appears to be your expectations, which are well within your control. That brings to mind something else my mother used to say: "Be grateful for what you've got."
University of Southern California economist Richard Easterlin, whose specialty is studying happiness, is best known for uncovering this paradox: Wealthier people in a given nation are generally happier than poorer citizens, but happiness levels do not rise as that nation grows wealthier.
Graham believes that the same thing happens with the happiness-health connection: Health standards keep rising, and our expectations rise accordingly. She calls this a "hedonic treadmill" whereby our aspirations rise along with our income and capacity to create good health. Apparently it is all relative.
Graham compared the effect of obesity on happiness. In the United States, obesity was associated with unhappiness among those with higher incomes and professional status where the condition bears a stigma. But in Russia, obesity is most prevalent among its wealthiest citizens -- which was the case in early 20th-century America -- and they make up a group of pretty happy campers.
A January survey in Social Science & Medicine included 2 million residents of 70 nations. It concluded that lifelong happiness ebbed among people in their 40s and recovered in later years. The researchers pinpointed the lowest point at about 44 -- when one appears to surrender the relentless optimism of youth and gives way to maturity's wisdom, self-acceptance and perspective.
Ultimately, science seems to be supporting all of those bromides you have heard all your life from teachers, coaches, mentors and relatives. Stop comparing yourself to others. Set realistic goals and achieve them. Don't dwell on life's setbacks. If you act happy, you probably will be happy.
Or to paraphrase my mother, be happy if you're healthy -- and count your blessings.
Steve Jacob is publisher of the Star-Telegram/Northeast and a master's student in health policy and management at the University
