Healthy Aging: Everything You Need to Know

Reviewed by: Stephanie Venn-Watson, DVM, MPH

Aging happens every second that passes. From the time you’re born, the cells in your body are on a specific life cycle. The average life cycle of a cell in your body is seven years, but some cells last our entire lives, while others last only a few weeks. 

As our cells age, we age, and the ultimate goal is to age as healthfully as possible. From how to tackle hearing loss to fall prevention tips, there’s been an increased focus on healthy aging as older Americans are a bigger part of the population than ever. The need to age healthfully has become such a major area of public health concern, that it’s the foundational focus of the World Health Organization’s policies surrounding aging. 

So just what is “healthy” aging, and how can you know for sure where you’re at on the healthy aging spectrum? We’ll talk about what it means to age healthfully, and how you can support your body so that it functions its best no matter what your age. 

What is Healthy Wellbeing?

It might seem simple to define. If you’re generally in good health, you’re likely aging healthfully. It’s not that easy. 

Healthy wellbeing is made up of five basic principles called functional ability that culminate to give each individual person the best possible ability to live life without restrictions.

1. Ability to Meet Basic Needs

First off, every person needs to be able to care for their basic needs to protect their health and wellbeing. 

During advanced aging, our ability to meet our basic needs, including food and shelter, can decrease. Whether injury, disease, mental health condition, or other health problem, it can be difficult for us to meet our needs, we may find ourselves in a position of being more reliant on others for this type of care. 

By staying healthy for as long as possible, we can extend the amount of time before having to be reliant on others to meet our basic needs.

2. Ability to Learn, Grow, and Make Decisions 

As we age, our cognitive function can begin to decline — think of issues like short-term memory loss, often referred to as having a “senior moment”.

This can make it more difficult to learn new concepts, acclimate better in society and social situations, and make the best decisions for ourselves. 

Healthy wellbeing includes protecting and preserving our cognitive function. Cognitive function is a part of our health that can be nourished and maintained.

Healthy wellbeing includes protecting and preserving our cognitive function. Cognitive function is a part of our health that can be nourished and maintained.

3. Ability to Be Mobile

Staying mobile can be a key way to promote our wellbeing for as long as possible. Mobility can be limited at any age due to disability, illness, or disease, but normally, there are solutions to help keep us moving. 

Keeping flexible, mobile, and protecting bone and muscular health is important to making sure we are able to remain mobile as we get older, especially when it comes to reducing the risk of falls.

4. Ability to Build and Maintain Relationships

Social structure is an important part of protecting our health and wellbeing; even for introverts! 

As we age, social interactions and relationships can decline due to numerous factors. Maintaining and building relationships with loved ones is important as we age. Research shows that adults over the age of fifty who have more social interactions than those who don’t report generally better overall health and quality of life. 

5. Ability to Contribute to Society

Even after retirement, your ability to contribute to society matters. Contribution can look different for everyone, but for an older person, it might involve volunteering, working part-time, caring for family members, or even participating in group therapy. 

Nearly a third of all retired adults have a desire to contribute to their communities and help others. Therefore, it’s important that as we age, we maintain a level of health that allows us to contribute to society, be a caregiver of our environment, and participate in activities that help keep us fulfilled. 

How to Age Healthfully

If aging healthfully means making sure we’re able to care for ourselves and still make contributions to others in terms of relationships and care, it’s important to understand how our body ages and what we can do to make sure our bodies are able to do these things the older we become. 

There are five main ways we can help our bodies age healthfully. 

1. Exercise

In terms of keeping mobile, there’s no better way to ensure you’ll be able to move longer than exercising. There are so many benefits for regular exercise as a part of your healthy lifestyle, entire volumes have been written about it. 

Exercise not only benefits your body by lubricating the joints, keeping you flexible and conditioned, and contributing to your balance, it also helps improve cognitive function and brain health supports your heart health, and combats heart disease and other health conditions. 

2. Maintain a Healthy Weight

It happens so easily; each year you gain a pound or two and before you know it, you end up with an additional 20 pounds around your midsection that can take a long time to melt away. 

Maintaining a healthy weight can help keep you mobile and can prevent weight-related diseases that can interfere with your ability to live your life at its fullest.

If you're carrying extra weight, the location is important, too. Excess weight around the midsection places a person at a higher risk of certain diseases, and can also be a contributing factor to metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that place a person at a much higher risk of heart attack and stroke. These conditions (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, insulin resistance, and excess weight around the midsection) are often developed together as we get older. 

3. Proper Diet

While it’s important to maintain a healthy weight, the obsession to lose excess weight has given birth to diet culture, which focuses more on what you shouldn’t eat than what you should. 

Just as important as it is to lose excess weight, it’s also important to make sure you get the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals you need to survive, and to thrive. As we get older, our dietary needs change. Our bodies need more calcium to support our bones, for example. A focus on fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean meats is a good place to start.

Ensuring we are eating a nutrient dense diet that not only promotes healthy weight but also optimum health can help you age healthfully. 

4. Engaging in Activities You Enjoy

Many adults look forward to retirement, which ideally are golden years of vacationing in the sun or playing golf daily. However, for the individual who isn’t aging healthfully, participating in activities they once enjoyed can be tiresome and difficult. 

In order to keep doing the things we love to do, we must make an intentional effort to keep engaged and active. The healthier we remain as we get older, the easier it will be to keep participating in our favorite activities. 

5. Using the Right Supplements

We aren’t strangers to supplements. In fact, some of us take more supplements than daily medications! The fact is, supplements can help fill in the gaps in our diets and support healthy aging by keeping us strong and focused. However, not all supplements are created equally. 

If aging starts at the cellular level, it makes sense to take a supplement that helps support our cells as they age. Fatty15 is a once a day supplement that can help your cells age healthfully, strengthen them, and give them a fighting chance to stay healthier, longer. 

What is fatty15 and How Does it Work?

Fatty15 is a daily supplement containing a pure, powder form of pentadecanoic acid, also known as C15:0 (pronounced, see-fifteen). This little odd-chain saturated fatty acid is important for your cellular health. In fact, it’s so important, research shows it may be the newest essential fatty acid on the block, taking a seat next to the famous omega-3 and omega-6.† 

Fatty15 works by diving deep into your cells to:*

• Strengthen cell membranes, protecting them, decreasing their fragility, and helping them stay strong;
• Supporting mitochondrial function, so your cells can produce more energy for you to keep doing the things you love to do;
• Bolster heart health, so the only time you need to communicate with your cardiologist is via holiday card;
• Help you maintain healthy metabolism, so you can focus on healthy eating and exercise instead of stressing about excess pounds;
• Balance immunity, so you feel better, never compromised. 

Ready to take the plunge and help your cells age as healthfully as possible? You can get a risk-free trial of fatty15 and start aging more healthfully right now. 

You can age healthfully and easily with a proper diet, regular exercise, and fatty15, a simple supplement to help strengthen your body at the cellular level.*† 

Following these tips and having regular checkups with your healthcare provider will set you up for success in healthy aging. 

Sources:

Ageing: Healthy ageing and functional ability Ageing | WHO 

Why Being Social is Good for You | South University 

Most Older Adults Want to Contribute to Society, and Many Do, New Study Showw | SF Community Living