Bourdain died by suicide while in France to film his CNN show “Parts Unknown.”
Another week, we might be discussing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s alarming new suicide report in abstract terms.
The CDC announced Thursday that suicide rates increased in all but one U.S. state from 1999 to 2016, and they rose by more than 30 percent in 25 of those states. The report also noted that nearly 45,000 Americans died of suicide in 2016, which, for perspective, is more people than Chicago’s Wrigley Field can hold during a sold-out baseball game. On average, 20 veterans die by their own hand daily.
But this wasn’t a week in which suicide felt vague or far off. On Tuesday, we learned of the passing of beloved fashion designer Kate Spade, and Friday brought news that chef Anthony Bourdain too had died while in France to film his CNN show “Parts Unknown.”
Suddenly, we all knew someone who had taken their own life. And at least one mental health organization connected those celebrity stories to America’s broader suicide crisis. In its statement on Spade’s death, the American Association of Suicidology pointed out that 28 women die by suicide every day in the U.S. and that, for middle-aged women in particular, it’s one of the top 10 (continued).
