Longevity Assignment
Death is unavoidable; it will happen at some point in everyone's life. However, most people want to put off that event as long as possible. Unfortunately, we do not often behave in ways that will allow us to live for a long time. Northwestern Mutual Financial Network's Longevity Game predicts lifespan by considering a number of current health factors. According to this game, which considers biological, genetic, and behavioral factors, I am living a healthy lifestyle and will live to be eighty-nine years old.
Biological factors include my age, sex, height, weight, and blood pressure. Obviously, the higher my age is currently, the higher the age I am likely to achieve. As a woman, I am likely to live longer than a man as
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I live in an industrialized country with access to healthcare, birth control, and medical interventions when necessary when giving birth. I have low blood pressure, which is a sign of a healthy heart. I am currently obese, which was calculated into the program as a biological fact and decreased my projected lifespan. Should I wish to live a longer life with fewer disabilities, I should change my diet and lose weight. This game considered my genetic history of heart disease in giving me a number for my projected age. I do not have a family history of heart disease, which makes it considerably less likely that I will develop heart disease. The game did not consider family history of cancer or diabetes, which can definitely impact longevity. Thankfully, I have a healthy family and should not need to worry about heart, cancer, or diabetes, I still need to make sure I eat healthfully and exercise regularly in order, again, to live longer with fewer disabilities in old age. Behavioral factors discussed in the game were the tracking of blood pressure under a doctor's care, management of stress, exercise habits, dietary habits, automobile safety, consumption of alcohol, and recreational drug use.
While blood pressure seems to be a repeat from the biological section, the game was asking for more than simple blood pressure numbers, but rather my knowledge of my blood pressure and the care I take. As I go to the doctor for preventative care checks and keep an eye on my blood pressure, I am more likely to live longer as issues will be noticed before they reach an emergency situation. Stress management can also impact life expectancy. Everyone has stressors in life; the way we manage them is what impacts our health. I do not currently manage stress well, although I am trying to change my thought processes because I would like my enjoyment of life to go up as well as my life expectancy. I exercise daily, which increases my longevity; if I wished to decrease later disability, I would exercise for longer and include strength building in my routines. My diet is about half and half processed foods and self prepared "real" foods, like fruits and vegetables, and I should change my eating behaviors. I always wear my seatbelt, which decreases the chance of death in an automobile accident, and I have had only one moving violation in the past three years. I drink less than once per week, never more two drinks, and I never drink and drive. I also do not dabble
with cigarettes or recreational drugs. These behavior decisions add many years to my life according to this game. I feel that this test left out a lot of issues, such as mental health, environmental issues (such as smog or secondary smoke), family support systems, gender identity (being transgender shortens lifespan expectations dramatically), and sexual orientation (being queer also shortens lifespan expectations). The game also did not touch ethnicity, poverty, or geographic location. I do not think that excluding race was a good idea because it erases that race, a sociological concept rather than biological fact, can change a person's longevity, speaking to larger sociocultural forces at play. I think these factors were included for three reasons: one, the gamemakers did not think these factors would be relevant to their English speaking, USA health insurance seeking audience and felt no need to be inclusive; two, this is supposed to be a little fun quiz rather than a serious look at the way we are affected by environment; and three, the factors the gamemakers chose to highlight were mostly ones that can be changed behaviorally. Anyone can choose to buckle up and eat more vegetables with a little encouragement while changing environmental factors is extremely difficult; changing race or gender identity is flat out impossible. Regardless of these issues with the quiz, I can still use it as a tool since they focused so much on behavioral issues. Personally, I was surprised to get such a high "score." Regardless, the test gave me more hope than I generally have about mortality. I can choose to exercise more, eat better foods and fewer calories, and continue to use stress management techniques in order to increase my projected longevity.
Mortality, the subject of death, has been a curious topic to scholars, writers, and the common man. Each with their own opinion and beliefs. My personal belief is that one should accept mortality for what it is and not go against it.
When a teacher from Tryhard high school decides to voice her/he’s distaste about the success of the students from the previous year in mathematics, a few students decide to take matters into their own hand. Using the scores of the previous years they started to analyses the documents and see if the teacher was wrong.
All people have probably considered that immortality would be an extremely joyous experience. William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, tells of the quality of life and how man exerts it; this is in direct comparison with Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow, written by Kurt Vaunnegut. Where as he also writes of the quality of life with the implication of immortality by drinking the miracle drink, Anti-Geresone. The insignificance of man from Shakespeare along with the concept of living forever from Vaunegut, draws the question of why would someone not want to die if life was so worthless. Both authors question the quality of life and as a result they express their concern in their writing.
Death is something that people are going to experience in their lifetime. Emanuel believes that “ After 75 we are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic” (3). Everything changes after a person turn 75, because a study by Eileen Crimmins from the University of Southern California shows that “as people age, there is a progressive erosion of physical functioning; from 1998 throughout 2006, the loss of functional mobility in the elderly has increased and Crimmins concludes that there was an increase in the life expectancy with disease and a decrease in the years without disease. The same is true for functioning loss, an increase in expected years unable to function” (Emanuel “Why I hope to die at 75” 5). Even if a person decides to live longer than 75 years old that person will experience lack of mobility
There are many environmental influences as well as human behaviors that contribute to one’s expected life span. Health and lifestyle are two major factors that play a role in determining what life would be like during the senior years of life. There are many advantages to having a strong social support network that consists of caregivers paid and unpaid. Seniors with this tend to live longer, remain independent and stay active in their later years. Citizens in today’s society are living longer due to technology, medications and an overall healthier lifestyle. Many reach the age of 100 but the maximum human life span is 120 years old. One’s personal data, career choices, environmental influences and amount of active interactions will determine how those of the older population will experience the aging process.
An individual’s personality and character structure portrays a major reflection of how they age. Personality style and character structure both incorporate the conscious and unconscious motivational, cognitive and affective mental states, as well as defense mechanisms (Silver 1992). Biopsychosocial factors-broken down into biological, psychological, and sociocultural-also play a huge role in personality and aging (Notes 10/08). Some examples of biological factors are health, genetics, and physiological function. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions would be considered psychological factors. Sociocultural factors include family, religion and community. Additionally, people endure unique experiences and circumstances throughout their life course,
The following is a discussion of three distinct approaches in the diagnosis and treatment of major Depression. These approaches are person-centered therapy, Gestalt therapy and reality therapy. Chosen from the list in the question above, these three are the most effective in the treatment of major depression. A case
Have you ever thought about wanting to die early? Well for Ezekiel J Emanuel this is completely the case. In his paper he describes why he doesn’t really want to live past the age of 75 as well as the reasoning and the facts to why living past the age of 75 is detrimental to society as well not really a life at all. Ezekiel is a 60 year old oncologist as well as a bioethicist, so this gives him a bit more credibility as to whether or not he knows what he is talking about. In the article “Why I hope to die at 75” Ezekiel J Emanuel expresses his opinion on why he thinks humans life after 75 is not worth living.
You Gulubeva and R. I. Danilova, they believe that a healthy lifestyle plays a big component on longevity it is considered the one main key to this case. It is explained throughout the article that as long as you live a healthy life it allows or gives you the opportunity for your organism to be strong enough to live longer, a weak organism is not ideal to reach longevity. "Weakening of the physical and mental abilities of the organism with aging is gradual, and it's impossible to specify exactly when it begins, more over it depends not only on the individual abilities of the organism, but also on the social conditions in which a man lives. As well as degree of his activity, nutrition, and lifestyle". It's also described how there how the "healthy lifestyle" is not prompted yet enough to the elderly population, which can be an explanation as to why the elderly have a healthy dissatisfaction. It has been said by Russians and other foreign authors that the lack of health promotion education lacks room for the ability performance on improving and strengthening health. "The subject concept of health plays a bigger role in longevity than objective measures, so the idea of people about their health is more important than their health". Determinants are one of the things that get in the way of the elderly population, that makes it impossible for them to elongate their life's, for example social status, health status, physical performance, and their mental state. A research in Russia was performed and it was noticed that with the "help of psychical culture is due to necessity of such forms of organization that will consider the level of physical fitness development and state of health and promote the formation of values related to a health
I was surprised to learn that successful aging is a combination of physical and functional health, high cognitive functioning, and active involvement with society. It was interesting to learn that these factors could lead to a lower risk of disease and disability. As
As American society has evolved in the past 100 years and technology has increased and improved, so has the life expectancy for individuals. Currently, females can expect to live for 81 years on average, while males can expect to live for 75 years, giving an average life expectancy of 78.3 years (Santrock, 2013, p.536). According to Santrock (2013), “since 1900, improvements in medicine, nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle have increased our life expectancy an average of 30 additional years,” but another important factor is the decreasing infant mortality, allowing a larger population of people, including older adults (p.536). Making good choices in diet, regular exercise, avoiding drugs and alcohol, along with getting enough sleep and maintaining a low and healthy stress level can all increase life expectancy. Relationships, emotional well-being, and having purpose all also play an important role in determining how long an individual will live. As people are living longer, more ...
We all have a purpose in this world that is often called destiny or fate; we all have our lives planned out, and there is a time and a place for everything. From the moment we are born to the time we die, everything happens for a reason. However, what would happen if we added life extension? In the context of this essay, life extension is the prolonging of life in which one cannot die from natural causes, where one can do things that are considered impossible in reality. However, with every good outcome there is an adverse outcome and moreover, the negative results tend to outweigh the positive outcomes. For example, outliving the lives of loved ones while they die over time, creates a never ending cycle of pain and regret. Michael J. Sandel,
Death is the one great certainty in life. Some of us will die in ways out of our control, and most of us will be unaware of the moment of death itself. Still, death and dying well can be approached in a healthy way. Understanding that people differ in how they think about death and dying, and respecting those differences, can promote a peaceful death and a healthy manner of dying.
In Steve Jobs’ Commencement Address at Stanford University in 2005, he argued that knowing he would die soon was the “most important tool” he used to help him make all of his big decisions in life. Assigning monetary value to a person’s life is immoral because lives should be priceless. Death is inevitable, but how one values their own life and how they live is important. Jobs said “ No one wants to die… And yet death is the destination we all share.”
Do you dream of living a long, healthy life? Fortunately, it is much easier to achieve this dream today, in a world that is more technologically and medically advanced than ever before. Because of these favorable advances, the life expectancies in most countries have increased. It is not enough, however, to solely rely on technology and medicine to increase your life expectancy. In order to make your dream a reality, you need to take a few additional steps. To improve your chances of living a long life, you should eat and drink healthy, have a consistent sleep routine, be physically and mentally active, reduce causes of stress and depression, avoid and/or quit smoking, and abstain from overindulgence.