Society has placed a huge amount of importance on age in recent years, with the emphasis on looking as young as possible. While experts have stated the benefits of a good diet and plenty of exercise in regards to looking good well into your old age, how true is it? Growing older is inevitable, but looking older doesn’t necessarily have to go hand in hand. These days, many people go to extreme measures to ensure they don’t look lined and wrinkled, but is there something to be said for growing old gracefully? Whatever your view on ageing, it’s a common misconception that ageing is chronologically driven – you don’t necessarily start to feel and look older the moment you hit a certain birthday.
The lifestyles we choose to lead in our twenties and thirties have a huge impact on how we look and feel in our sixties and seventies. Those burgers and Saturday nights down the pub may be fun now, but will you regret your choices when you’re looking haggard and prone to diseases later in life? It’s likely that you will, yet many people don’t alter their lifestyles to accommodate the kind of life they want to lead later on. These habits are evident in certain cultures, such as in Japan where healthy diets are key and people live healthier lives in old age. Compare this to Malaysia, the fattest country in South-East Asia, where people are eating fatty foods and suffering from obesity and side effects of their diet, such as diabetes and cancer.
Understanding the ageing process is key in order to use it to your advantage and avoid the dreaded effects for as long as possible. This means exercising more, even if it’s at home in your living room or garden, as well as cutting the fat and sugar from your diet and replacing it with health-boosting foods. It also means making sure that you’re targeting issues that may arise when you age, such as improving your flexibility which can be a problem for older people. Once you know what you’re up against, you can take measures to prevent it in a healthy way.