Monday, 18 February 2008 15:10 PDFPrint

It's Never Too Early to Start Good Life Habits

Written by Dan Buettner

It's usually not the young among us who are focused on improving their lifestyle and achieving longevity. Why? Simple: longevity's just not on your mind at a young age.

But our research in the BlueZones has shown that it's never to early to start developing healthy habits that will pay off much later in life.

We used a forensic approach – looking at how BlueZones centenarians lived the first half of their lives. Uniformly we found that the people who survived into their 100's had solidified their lifestyles early on. Take Okinawan women over 70 – the longest-lived population on the planet. After the US Base was established in Okinawa following World War II, the food culture completely changed – from plant based to, quite literally, Spam-based. Today, men under 55 (reared immediately following WWII) have the shortest life expectancy in all of Japan's 43 prefectures while women just 15 years older (reared before WWII) have the highest in the world.

If you're young, even though old age seems infinitely far away, remember that the habits you develop now will pay off in a big way thirty, forty or fifty years from now.

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What is 'Outlook'?

A healthy outlook is an important component of longevity. The Okinawans call it Ikigai, and Nicoyans call it “plan de vida,” but in both cultures the phrase means “why I wake up in the morning.” Read more...

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