My Take on why we justify our eating habits based on age

your approach to wellness and what you expect from healthy aging

Jan 16, 2024

It started with a comment: I’m too old to change my eating habits now.

I thought about that for a long time. I didn’t say anything to the woman who said it in conversation. But days later, I was still formulating answers:

Why would you be too old to start feeling better?
What does age have to do with learning new ways to care for yourself?
Isn’t aging all about learning and growing?
Do you have the same habits as when you were 10? Or 30? Or 50?

Age is a huge qualifier in our lives. We use it to justify everything.

How do you view aging?

Are you anti-aging or pro-aging?

There’s a big difference in your approach to wellness and what you expect from healthy aging.

Let’s talk about it …

POV: I’m too old to change my eating habits now.

Throughout our lives, we have hidden beliefs about aging. Pick out any age - 5 or 25 or 65 - your mind instantly starts forming opinions and characteristics.

This reminds me of a story …

My husband and I owned a wedding photography business for many years. I’ll never forget one client who repeatedly warned us about “crazy Aunt Helen.” The groom’s aunt was a bit wild and eccentric; we would be able to pick her out of the crowd. They knew “crazy Aunt Helen” would be in family portraits, but they didn’t want her in candids. They didn’t want “her behavior” captured forever in their photographs.

I kept an eye out for crazy Aunt Helen that day. I never found her.

What I did see was this fantastic woman in her sixties jumping in to be part of the action. She danced with the groom and strutted her stuff. She laughed and had fun all day long. She joked with us, having the time of her life.

I loved her!

So, of course, she ended up in quite a few pictures.

We delivered the photos, and the bride and her mom fumed. Why was “crazy Aunt Helen” in so many images? They wanted all those photos deleted; her bad behavior would never grace the pages of their wedding albums.

Quite frankly, I was shocked. I bit my tongue, trying to figure out why her behavior was so wrong. I loved her spunk.

She acted like a woman who was loving life, who was very comfortable in her own skin.

During one lengthy conversation, the bride’s mom finally revealed the problem:

Why doesn’t she act her age?

Culturally, we’ve determined what we think is appropriate for every age. We program behavior according to birthdays.

And we do it even worse as we age.

Did your mind jump to assumptions based on a number?

How aging impacts your health …

“If you choose healthy lifestyle habits, you can live a long, healthy life and pass quickly when the time comes. In other words, your healthspan can equal your lifespan.” Dr Mark Hyman

I read those words in one of Dr Hyman’s latest books. I nodded in agreement as I turned the pages.

We’re conditioned as a society to think aging and decline are the same things.

Have you ever uttered these words?

I’m too old to do that
I’m too close to retirement
I’ve always eaten this way
I can’t change now

Let’s change your perspective.

I consider adulthood to start around 22. For me, that’s when I graduated college, got married, and started life out on my own.

While it changes from year to year, the experts tell us that the average life expectancy is 82.

Simple math puts the middle at 52.

Fifty-two!

Look at everything you accomplished in life between 22 and 52. So much living!

If you have the same number of years left, look at all you could do. Do you really want to sit around and do nothing for the next thirty years? Of course not.

And with today’s life expectancy increasing all the time, living to 92 or even 102 isn’t out of the question.

This is where the differences between lifespan and healthspan come into play.

Lifespan is easy to understand.

It’s the amount of time we have on planet Earth in our human form. Right now, lifespan sits right around 82 years of age. On average, we can expect to live to about 82 years old.

Healthspan is a bit different.

Healthspan is the period of life when one is healthy. Health can mean different things to different people. But I define it as being free from serious disease, able to live life as I desire.

You don’t have to look very far to see healthspan is under attack.

Chronic disease has filtered into our lives at younger ages. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and immune problems are all decreasing health and requiring us to live with chronic ailments.

And we’re doing very little about it.

The WHO has developed an indicator – HALE – to approximate the average age of serious disease and craft an average healthspan number. The current age is 66.2.

That’s around 16 years of failing health, on average, per person. Or 20 percent of life!

“The insults that accompany life - poor diet, stress, inactivity, poor sleep, environmental toxins, changes to our microbiome, social isolation - all drive inflammation. … The primary driver is our modern diet. It is pro-inflammatory, high in sugar and starch, low in fiber, awash in refined pills, nutrient-poor, and phytonutrient-depleted. In other words, a perfect recipe for disease, inflammation, and aging.” Dr Mark Hyman

I couldn’t agree more!

Good health starts with food …

The human body is truly a miraculous thing. No matter how much stress it’s under, it can morph quickly into something better by tweaking and making changes.

You're never too old to change your eating habits and have it make a difference in your life.

Good health starts with good food. But there might be three things holding you back:

Comfort Food: It makes you feel good, so why not eat it?
Habits: When you’re stressed or in a hurry, it’s easier to fall back on old patterns.
Mindset: The future is cast in stone.

Let’s look at Jeannie’s story. At 55, she’s been making significant changes to her life. She joined a gym and works out several days a week. She’s vowed to give clean eating a try. Still, she finds several holdbacks:

Comfort Food: She has her favorite foods, things she’s loved her whole life. Like the big juicy hamburger that became a mainstay for weekend barbeques. They remind her of the good times when her kids were younger.
Habits: She has a busy life. There are many days she’s running after the kids or finalizing client meets until well after five. When she gets home tired and out of energy, she turns to old habits willingly - boxed food from the pantry and freezer. Better yet, ordering in is even better.
Mindset: Why should she change? She’s always loved her favorites. It’s not like changing how she eats now will have any impact …

Here’s the thing. The best time to make changes to your eating habits is yesterday. If you didn't do it yesterday, start today. There’s proof to support it.

A New England Journal of Medicine study followed 74,000 people of all ages for over two decades. One of the most surprising things they found was when people improved their eating habits, they had the biggest changes in their health.

Small, gradual improvements in your food choices help over time.

It’s not necessary to dramatically change your lifestyle. Skip going all-in on a wildly different diet than you consume today. Instead, set better, smaller goals you can achieve and sustain over time.