HEALTH MATTERS
The Secrets Of
Healthy Aging
By Kepha Nyanumba
P
eople worldwide are living longer.
Today, for the first time in history,
most people can expect to live
into their sixties and beyond. By 2050,
the world’s population aged 60 years
and older is expected to total 2 billion,
up from 900 million in 2015. The global
average life expectancy increased by 5.5
years between 2000 and 2016, the fastest
increase since the 1960s.
These gains reverse declines during
the 1990s, when life expectancy fell in
Africa because of the AIDS epidemic,
and in Eastern Europe following the
collapse of the Soviet Union. The 2000-
2016 increase was greatest in the WHO
African Region, where life expectancy
increased by 10.3 years to 61.2 years.
This has led to a shift in the population
distribution in the African, just like the
rest of the world but it’s surprising that
the thought of aging fills many people
with fear. The question we should ask
ourselves is, “why do people fear aging?”
Aging is a biological process we must all
undergo.
At the biological level, ageing results from
the impact of the accumulation of a wide
variety of molecular and cellular damage
over time. This leads to a gradual decrease
in physical and mental capacity as well
as increased risk of disease. But these
changes are neither linear nor consistent,
and they are only loosely associated with
a person’s age in years. While some 70
year-olds enjoy extremely good health
and functioning, other 70 year-olds are
frail and require significant help from
others.
Factors that Influence
Healthy Aging
Staying healthy and feeling your best is
important at any age and that doesn’t
Your body shape changes naturally as you
age. You cannot avoid some of these chang-
es, but your lifestyle choices may slow or
speed the process. The decline in muscle
mass that begins as we age, coupled with a
decrease in activity level, means that you
need fewer calories in your sixties than you
did as a teenager. Most of us eat more cal-
ories than we need and when that happens,
we gain a significant amount of fat, usually
in the abdomen.
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vary just because you have a few more grey
hairs. As we grow older, we experience an
increasing number of major life changes.
How we handle and grow from these
challenges is the key to staying healthy.
Although some of the variations that
influence our aging process are genetic,
much is due to our physical and social
environments including our homes,
neighbourhoods and communities, as well
as personal characteristics such as their
sex, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.
These factors start to influence the aging
process at an early stage.
Our environment during childhood
combined with our personal characteristics,
have long-term effects on our aging
process. For instance, environment has an
important influence on the development
and maintenance of a healthy lifestyle.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle throughout
life, particularly eating a balanced diet,
engaging in regular physical activity, and
refraining from tobacco use slows down
our aging process, reduces the risk of non-
communicable diseases and improves our
physical and mental capacity.
Metabolic Effects of Aging
As you get older, it's normal to gain
weight, right? It may be normal if you
define "normal" as "common" but it's not
desirable, and it's not inevitable either.
Chances are, you weigh more now than
you did ten years ago. Or maybe your
waistline has expanded, but the scale
remained steady. Understanding what
happens with weight as your body ages
will help you to control it.