Date Published: September 18, 2006   

Beaufort longest; Marlboro shortest life expectancy

The Associated Press

Marlboro County, where people still feast at Southern buffets, don't get much exercise and have limited access to health care, has the lowest life expectancy in South Carolina.

The average person living in the county on the northeastern edge of the state dies just short of age 70. By contrast, affluent Beaufort County, on the south coast, has the longest life expectancy. There people live, on average, almost 79 years.

In rural Marlboro County, the population is 51 percent black and more than 20 percent of the people live below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the South Carolina Office of Research and Statistics. In Beaufort County, 75 percent of residents are white and just 11 percent of residents have incomes below the poverty level.

Dick Ellis, 78, is a retired airline pilot living on Hilton Head. He keeps busy playing golf or working out at the gym. Ellis has lunch with friends, mentors young students and volunteers for charitable causes.

"You don't have to do a ... thing here. But you won't live very long that way. You have to be engaged," he said. "When you do that, you don't think about yourself and all your aches and pains."

Many affluent retirees have flocked to the area and most keep busy.

"We don't have time here to feel too bad," said Fran Marship, 60, a resident of Sun City Hilton Head.

In Marlboro County, things are different, where diet and a sedentary lifestyles are blamed for the shorter lifespan.

Dennis Miller, 50, is the recreation director in the city of Bennettsville but already had a heart attack and a triple bypass by the time he was 45.

He said it's a result of too many Southern buffets and too little exercise.

"It's nobody's fault but my own," he said.

Sara Musselwhite, a lifelong resident of Bennettsville, said while many people live into their 80s and 90s, it is younger folks who are bringing down the life expectancy age.

"It's the young people that are dying on us," she said. "They are having heart attacks and strokes."

Residents say sedentary lifestyles, auto accidents, smoking and limited access to health care contribute to the problem.

Patrick Smith runs a fitness club in Bennettsville where there used to be three others. But the others closed their doors because of a lack of business.

"Unfortunately, a lot of people are forced to come here because their doctor said they had to," he said.

But Rhonda Frazier exercises regularly because she wants to. She wants to get back her figure after giving birth to twins last year.

She said it's scary people in the county on average only live to age 69.

"I've got to be around for them," she said, pointing to a picture of her babies.

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Information from: The Post and Courier,