What is a healthy lifestyle, exactly?
Here is how the healthy habits are defined and measured:
1. Healthy diet, which is calculated and rated based on the reported intake of
healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, healthy fats, and omega-3 fatty acids, and
unhealthy
foods like red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, trans fat, and sodium.
2. Healthy physical activity level, which is measured as at least 30 minutes per day
of moderate to vigorous activity daily.
3. Healthy body weight, defined as a normal body mass index (BMI), which is between
18.5 and 24.9.
4. Smoking, well, there is no healthy amount of smoking. "Healthy" here meant never
having
smoked.
5. Moderate alcohol intake, which is measured as between 5 and 15 grams per day for
women,
and 5 to 30
grams per day for men. Generally, one drink contains about 14 grams of pure alcohol. That’s 12 ounces of
regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.
Does a healthy lifestyle make a difference?
As it turns out, healthy habits make a big difference. According to this analysis, people who met criteria for all five habits enjoyed significantly, impressively longer lives than those who had none: 14 years for women and 12 years for men (if they had these habits at age 50). People who had none of these habits were far more likely to die prematurely from cancer or cardiovascular disease.
Study investigators also calculated life expectancy by how many of these five healthy habits people had. Just one healthy habit (and it didn’t matter which one) … just one… extended life expectancy by two years in men and women. Not surprisingly, the more healthy habits people had, the longer their lifespan. This is one of those situations where I wish I could reprint their graphs for you, because they’re so cool.
This is huge. And, it confirms prior similar research — a lot of prior similar research. A 2017 study using data from the Health and Retirement Study found that people 50 and older who were normal weight, had never smoked, and drank alcohol in moderation lived on average seven years longer. A 2012 mega-analysis of 15 international studies that included over 500,000 participants found that over half of premature deaths were due to unhealthy lifestyle factors such as poor diet, inactivity, obesity, excessive alcohol intake, and smoking. And the list of supporting research goes on.
Jacob Smith
When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way.
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Chris Meyer
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Chintan Patel
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean.
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Jean Doe
A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
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Ben Afflick
Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.
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Jean Doe
Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.
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