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Comment by h2onock | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one that isn't even 1% surprised by this? Nearly every person I know that is over 40 years of age does next to no exercise, and eats and drinks too much.

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my parents just retired. they are ~70. they think exercise is walking outside for 2-3 miles. they sit and watch tv and don't move much beyond going out to restaurants daily. Their nutritional knowledge is limited, and sometimes flat out wrong/contradictory. They think they are eating healthy when they order the salad loaded with bread and drenched with dressing.

I am not surprised.

If they're walking 2 or 3 miles daily or most days they're more active than most in their age group.

Heck, at 2-3 miles a day they'd be above nearly everyone older than about 12.

Walking 2-3 miles on a regular basis is actually sufficient to stave off a whole host of geriatric diseases

Exactly, and especially and the advanced age of his parents, any active should beat no activity.

My grandparents (85ish) do the same, they go on walks and occasionally bike rides together. Not very far, around 5km. But it beats just sitting around doing nothing!

A lot of it cultural. The fitness craze (and denial of death) is strong in the USA.

Some of my geriatric relatives are ridiculously healthy, by choice. Two of them were part of this program:

"Are you Fitter than a Pensioner?" [2010]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00txmm3

In response to the obesity & diabetes epidemic, the BBC sent kids to live and train with seniors in the USA. The before and after interviews are quite telling.

Losing to seniors really changed the kid's perceptions of and expectations for aging.

I don't understand this trend on HN lately. "In other news, fire burns"

You might have too many casual users like me browsing this forum now.

Newly every person over 40 I know is training for a triathalon and eating sophisticated diets and hardly drinking.

Same for me (actually, most of the people I know are focused on running, but I guess it could be applied to nearly all sports).

The closer I get to my forties, the more important it is to take care of my body. Basically, you just realize that your body is not what it used to be, and you have either the choice to do something to stay/get back in shape (more sports, a better diet), or let it go (which is, unfortunately, the first step to health complications).

There is also a strong bias regarding to whom you hang with then. Being "seriously" involved in any sport means that you are going to dedicate a significant part of your free time to training, and therefore, will spent much more time with your fellow sportsmates than "regular" friends.

I'm really, very pleased to hear that... where in the world are you out of interest!?

The UK, in the industrial north.

It's bi-modal isn't it?

Half of people are fatter than ever, the other half are fitnesses obsessed. There's not as much moderation in the middle as there sued to be.

Here's some conjecture: The people that were driven to be healthy in the past were about as healthy as the health-obsessed people today. And the people in the past who didn't care defaulted into a lifestyle and eating habits that, based on what was marketed and available to them, left them looking and being average from a weight and health context.

Now, they've similarly "defaulted" into the lifestyle and eating habits that are available to them, but those are worse for their health.

I think historically people were thin due to malnourishment.

I am 50 now and I definitely feel that my body can't endure hard training that well anymore and little injuries just keep accumulating. I am now doing a relatively mild yoga routine every morning and I feel I can maintain that for a long time.

I always wonder how the people over 40 training for a triathlon do in the long run. Do they accumulate more and more problems until they can't do it anymore? How do they handle injuries that don't allow them to run anymore?

The great thing about triathlon training is that if you have a minor running injury you can just stop running for a few weeks to let it heal and focus on swimming, cycling, and resistance training instead. It's totally possible to endure hard training until you're >80.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_Buder#Triathlon_career

This person is an outlier. That's not normal. I used to do kickboxing and yes, there were a few fighters who did great in their 40s but most after a few years had massive injuries that prevented them from continuing. I myself have a bad knee and a bad shoulder so I can't run, cycle or swim without pain.

Used to teach yoga classes. During seminars you could see older famous teachers do amazing stuff. I thought yoga is is really healthy until I found out that a lot of them had hip and knee replacements and often lived in painkillers.

I believe most people simply can't do high intensity stuff from a certain age on or have to be very selective.

Sure there are some outliers and there's obviously survivorship bias but if you check the results from any large endurance race you'll find many older age group athletes with finishing times not far off the overall winners. You really can't compare endurance sports with high impact, full contact sports like kickboxing.

How old are you?

I'd say people under 40 are no better. It is just that when you are young your body can compensate for poor habits and excesses.

Please move somewhere where you're not surrounded by unhealthy people.

Well, those people will need healthy people in their health insurance pool to fund their lifestyle, so maybe not.

Our genes weren't made to sit around, browse the internet and open the fridge door every 45 minutes. Eventually our genes might change but we'll probably need the old ones, when /if West Civ collapses.

Lack of exercise is definitely part of the issue.

But "blood pressure rise with age" is almost certainly due to atherosclerosis. And atherosclerosis seems to be primarily caused due to inflammation, which destroys the artery walls, which in turn kickstarts the immunity system to come and "repair" them by patching them up with cholesterol and calcium. Then there is less room for blood to pass through the arteries = higher blood pressure. The calcium/cholesterol plaques breaking apart = heart attack.

There's also this new theory that the stuff that acts as protection for your artery walls is destroyed by high glucose in the blood/high-carb meals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkTuBaWN5sg

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