A long life and a healthy way of life
Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health used data from the well-known Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study to do a huge study on how health practices affect how long people live (HPFS). This means that they knew a lot about a lot of different people for a long time. From 1980 to 2014, the NHS kept track of more than 78,000 women. From 1986 to 2014, the HPFS kept track of almost 40,000 males. This includes more than 120,000 people, 34 years of information about women, and 28 years of information about men. The researchers looked at data from validated questionnaires that were given regularly to the NHS and HPFS about nutrition, physical activity, body weight, smoking, and alcohol use.
If you are bored with doing it by yourself, try to go somewhere: e.g.: to Abbotshall Healthy Lifestyle Centre or to the others in order to get acquainted with new people and stay motivated to live in a healthy way.
What exactly is a healthy way of living?
These five areas were chosen because research has shown that they have a big effect on how likely someone is to die young. Here are the main points for the healthy lifestyle:
1. Healthy diet, calculated and scored based on reported intake of healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, healthy fats, and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as unhealthy foods like red meat, trans fat and sugar-sweetened beverages.
2. A healthy level of physical activity was defined as at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity every day.
3. A healthy body weight is between 18.5 and 24.9 on the body mass index (BMI) scale.
4. When it comes to smoking, there is no such thing as a healthy amount. In this case, “healthy” meant that the person had never smoked.
Moderate drinking is 5 to 15 grams of alcohol per day for women and 5 to 30 grams per day for men. Usually, 14 grams of pure alcohol are in one drink. This is the same as 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of spirits that have been distilled.
Researchers also looked at data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys and the Wide-Range Online Data for Epidemiologic Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Does living a healthy life really make a difference?
It turns out that healthy habits make a huge difference. One study found that people who met the criteria for all five behaviors lived 14 years longer than those who didn’t, and men lived 12 years longer than women (if they had these habits at age 50). People who didn’t do any of these things had a much higher chance of dying from cancer or heart disease.
So, what’s our big problem?
The authors of this study point out that different countries spend a lot of money on fancy drugs and other treatments for diseases instead of trying to keep them from happening. This is a big deal.
Experts say that the best way to help people change what they eat and how they live is to do it on a large scale, through public health activities and changes to the law. (Think of laws about motorcycle helmets and seat belts…) We’ve made some progress on laws about tobacco and trans fats. Big business has a lot to say about this, which is no surprise. If we have rules and laws to help people live healthier lives, big companies won’t sell as much fast food, chips, and soda. And this makes corporations mad because they want to make money at the cost of people’s lives.