The American public is enjoying a new age revolution that involves more of us reaching and exceeding age 85 with an astonishing number of individuals living past the 100 year mark. What gets the credit for this statistic? Many of us not only want to live longer, we want to live healthier lives in which to enjoy the longevity of them.
One reason for our increased longevity is that our industrialized society has broadened our ability to have good things including improved sanitation, medicines and other medical technologies, improved nutritional knowledge, and better food and water supplies have all contributed to our ability to live longer. The purposeful goal of living a life that is natural, simple and free of toxins can also help us to achieve this goal of living a long life.
There are those of us who aspire to live to be 100 and still enjoy the lives we live. We want to maintain our mobility, our independence and our bodily functions. To do this we must take good care of our body parts while we go through our youth, and our middle age so that by the time we enter our 60's and 70's we have learned how to age gracefully and with dignity. Growing old gracefully just doesn't happen without putting some thought and action into achieving this noble goal. Our lifestyle determined by the risks we take and the healthy habits we cultivate, or not, have a bearing on the state of our health in later years. Aging successfully means that we actually get to achieve old age by caring for our body and by not participating in dangerous activity that would put our body at risk for disease or injury. This applies to sexual activity as well as physical sporting or work/pleasure activities as well. It entails thinking about consequences for our behavior so that we are protecting the health of our body in everything that we do.
Aging successfully hinges on providing our bodies with proper nutrition throughout every life stage. Each stage has different needs from embryonic, infant, toddler, child, older child, teen, young adult, adult and aging adult. The body grows rapidly right from conception through the teen years, when it changing to reproductive tasks and matures. Growing and reproducing has different nutritional requirements from the mature and aging body and so we must make good choices when we plan meals so that everyone gathered around the table has what their body needs at that particular stage. There are vital nutrients that our bodies require to build cells and to function properly. These needs change over time and so our food selection choices should change to. There are certified nutritionists who work in clinics, schools, health centers and hospitals that are available to answer our questions regarding what foods are best at which life stage. Books are available on this subject in libraries and in bookstores.
Achieving old age can also be contributed to genetic and environmental factors. We have no control over the genetics part of the equation, but we can control our environmental factors. We can control the quality of the air we breathe and the food and water we consume. We can control what substances we introduce into our bodies (alcohol, social drugs, tobacco) and we can control how much sun exposure we receive as too much is not good and too little is also not healthy.
