Describe the effects of a healthy lifestyle on longevity

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Healthy (and unhealthy) lifestyle actions you take today will have an impact on health and quality of life in middle and advanced age. Lack of physical activity, a common phenomenon in our society as people age, is accompanied by decreases in physical work capacity that are greater by far than the effects of aging itself. Data on individuals who have taken part in systematic physical activity throughout life indicate that these people maintain a higher level of functional capacity and do not experience the typical declines in later years. From a functional point of view, typical sedentary people in the United States are about 25 years older than their chronological age indicates. Thus, an active 60-year-old person can have a physical work capacity similar to that of a sedentary 35-year-old person. Unhealthy behaviors precipitate premature aging. For sedentary people, any type of physical activity is seriously impaired by age 40 and productive life ends before age 60. Most of these people hope to live to be age 65 or 70 and often must cope with serious physical ailments. These people "stop living at age 60 but are buried at age 70."