Updating Our Ideas About Healthy Living
According to traditional medical records and scientific study, the article says the human lifespan should be no less than one hundred to one hundred fifty years, yet very few people actually reach such ages. Premature aging and death therefore account for a great personal, family and social loss. The writer argues that traditional thinking about health preservation should change and new ideas should be established.
1. Establish the idea of living beyond one hundred
The desire to live beyond one hundred reflects both personal wishes and social needs. Healthy longevity requires knowledge and effort. First, the old ideas that ‘a person reaching seventy has always been rare’ and that ‘dying at fifty is not premature’ should be replaced by the expectation of a life beyond one hundred. This should be considered something worth striving for rather than an extravagant hope. The key questions are whether to strive and how to strive. A new idea and desire can strengthen determination and perseverance against the many factors that harm health and longevity, steadily accumulate factors that improve health and create a mental foundation for a long life. Otherwise, a person may become satisfied with the traditional belief that reaching seventy is enough.
2. Establish a life-course concept of health preservation
Traditional health preservation was often reserved for old age, but premature decline and death prevent many people—especially in middle age—from reaching that stage. Health preservation should therefore begin in infancy or even prenatal education. Different requirements should be proposed for each stage—prenatal, infant and young child, youth, young adult, middle age and old age—to improve health continually and create a solid foundation for longevity. Individual records and care should be established for centenarians, and their experiences should be studied and shared to enrich knowledge about healthy living. In this way, the writer asks, might not everyone have hope of reaching one hundred?