The truth about aging.

Hot take: It’s not a choice IF we age, it’s a choice on HOW we age.

I think it’s fascinating when we really start to examine our own personal beliefs about ‘getting older.’ I reflect on how I saw ‘aging’ as a child. I am very lucky to have had healthy parents, but my grandparents suffered from, what society calls ‘age-related,’ illnesses of their own. I watched my grandmother suffer from dementia to the end of her life, and my grandfather, a man I never got to meet, passed away from a heart attack a few weeks before I was born. What is most interesting, for my grandmother specifically, is that fact that I watched her as I grew older, and the lifestyle behaviors she practiced daily. Not because she wanted to get sick, of course, but because she didn’t know. Going to Mama’s house meant buttermilk pancakes with margarine and Aunt Jemima’s pancake syrup — I can literally still smell the skillet. She added granulated sugar to her cornflakes and had a pantry loaded with all sorts of food-like items. She was inactive and overweight, and I remember her, most clearly, having trouble even getting around. She was outgoing and happy, and loved her grandchildren, and her family dearly. It breaks my heart to think about the person she became as the dementia set in, she became unrecognizable.

I always assumed that as you get older, this is just what happens. You get sick.

Whether that be with cancer, neurodegenerative issues like Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, or a combination of them all. How frightening, right? We are at risk for developing a laundry list of chronic illnesses — that we are told are largely out of our control.

I think this is just a general belief that permeates American healthcare. It’s “just a part of getting older.” Who else has heard that at one point or another? We are lead to believe we have little control over these inevitable futures, filled with hardship and suffering and eventual death. For those who have experienced this or have heard this before, how helpless did that make you feel? It robs you of any authority you feel you may have in feeling better, in avoid this inevitability — but I am here to shift the narrative.

Research in 2008 identified the percentage of adults, 55 years and over, who suffered from one or more, two or more, or THREE or more, chronic conditions. The results are as follows: 78%, 47%, and 19% respectively. The chronic illnesses of focus included arthritis, asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and diabetes.

I’d be curious to understand the connection between these statistics and accompanying lifestyles. THIS. This is the driver. After all, it is 90% environment and lifestyle and 10% genes that dictate our health and wellness. Read that again. 90%.

Now, I am not trying to be morbid here, BUT this has got to change.

While I cannot control that with every year, I get older. I CAN control the way I take care of myself, my environment, and how it influences my gene expression and the rate at which I age, physically and physiologically. I can control the food that I eat, the movement I integrate, the sleep I invest in, the way I manage stress and practice self care, the health of my gut — and more. Research shows that for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, dementia, and Parkinson’s, the onset of these issues neurologically appear even 10-15 years prior to symptoms. It makes me wonder: how could the trajectory of my grandmother’s life been different had this research existed 20 years ago?

Bottom line: my lifestyle is mine to choose. I have control in these things and choose to nourish them in the best way possible for the sake of the statistics above in order to avoid becoming a statistic above.

I urge you to recallibrate your view on aging. AND, if anyone tells you (i.e. doctors, healthcare professionals), that your symptoms or ailments are ‘just a part of getting older,’ I wouldn’t stop there — I’d look into it further. While yes, as we age, our body is changing in a way that is out of our control, it is ENORMOUS the role that nutrition, exercise, and more can have on the quality of life that you’re living.

The life that I am choosing to live now, at 28 years old, is impacting the life that I will lead at 78 years old.

So, ask yourself: what life are you living for the sake of your older self?

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Resource: National Center for Health Statistics