I think the visions of people undergoing cancer treatment 40 years ago still linger. It's bad enough now, but it must have been fucking awful before the antiemetics a were sorted out during chemo and when radiotherapy fried you, literally, to the bone. Early surgery for breast cancer saw women filleted like fish. Horrible.
So yes, we usually fair better, and look better, than the winners of the boobie prize in the 60s and 70s. As long as it doesn't kill us.
The irony is that if we look well while all this shit is happening, we must have looked terrible beforehand :)