Dear Dad,
Many who are reluctant to consider a healthier way of eating will eventually pose the question, what about that one person who drank, smoked, and ate garbage his whole life yet still lived until 103?
It’s a fair curiosity, however, applying that logic to your health is like relying on the lottery for your financial plan, guessing on the exams and expecting straight A’s, or hoping your natural talent alone carries you to athletic stardom.
There’s always outliers—jack-pot winners, geniuses, and star athletes. But for every one of those outliers there are millions of people who are not. But non-outliers can still achieve wealth by wise planning, excel intellectually by consistent studying, and compete physically by disciplined training. These people can also live and thrive well into old-age by taking a reasoned approach to healthy eating and living.
Life expectancy is a bell curve. There are outliers on either side, but fortunately or unfortunately, most of us are projected to live to an age somewhere comfortably under the bell. The graph below represents a generic model of life expectancy for a population.1 It’s demonstrative and not meant to portray any specific data set.
In the graph, the average life expectancy is set at 75 years with a standard deviation of 5 years—meaning that roughly 68% of people will live between 70-80 years, that’s the average. Sixteen percent (16%) will live below that range and 16% above. That’s a normal distribution bell curve. Actual life expectancy doesn’t work out to be a perfectly normal distribution like above, but it follows a similar trend.
When considering longevity and healthspan the objective is to push yourself to the right on the graph hoping to make it in the green area or beyond (top 16% of years lived) which is at least one standard deviation above the average. The most effective way to be better than average is to not behave averagely.
Good news! The “average” American lifestyle, which is likely to get you between 70-80 years, is not inspiring as it relates to factors effecting your health and therefore achievable to exceed.
The CDC recommends “at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity” and muscle strengthening exercises of “moderate or greater intensity involving all major muscle groups on 2 days a week or more.”2
Essentially, in the course of a week an adult is recommended to engage in at least 50-minutes of fast walking or slow jogging 3x a week with an added 10 minutes each session of strength training. Three hours a week and less than 75% of adults meet these CDC guidelines for exercise. If you were to meet these guidelines you would find yourself in the top 10%.
The “average” American diet follows the same story. It is consistently characterized by high amounts of calories, fat, sodium, and sugar, and low amounts of fruits and vegetables. In 2019, over 90% of American adults failed to eat the recommended 2 cups of veggies per day.3
The point is, being above average is right within reach when it comes to healthy eating and exercising. And the weight of the credible evidence shows that regular exercise and healthy eating are strongly correlated with the placement of your dot on the longevity bell curve. Don’t be fooled by the allure of the outliers and remember there’s likely to be many more smoking, drinking, garbage eaters on the wrong end of the curve who are just not remembered because they don’t serve the argument and desire to continue unhealthy habits.
Be above average and push your dot to the right.
Maybe eating well and exercising moderately is too much to ask for another 5 years of life. Maybe it’s not worth it. But maybe it is.
With Love,
JSR
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/4403253/what-percentage-of-a-population-that-has-survived-one-standard-deviation-will-su
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db443.htm#section_1
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a1.htm#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20median%20frequency,also%20observed%20in%2037%20states.