As we grow older, our bodies continue to change. Physical activity and a proper diet have always been key elements to a healthy lifestyle, but it’s important to make sure we’re taking our body’s abilities into consideration. Theresa MacPhail, a science writer and medical anthropologist, discusses her own experience on adjusting her exercise schedule to ensure she’s giving her body exactly what it needs.
Getting exercise and having a proper diet are the biggest keys to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. As we grow older, however, our bodies grow and change, and thus our diets and the ways in which we move our bodies, also need to be adjusted.
Theresa MacPhail is a science writer, medical anthropologist, and associate professor of Science, Technology, and Society, who recently wrote about her own experience having to change up the ways in which she got physical activity after her sports medicine doctor told her it was “time” to give up running last year.
“Since I was a teen, [running] had been my primary form of exercise and stress relief. But for months, I had been ignoring small signs of encroaching decrepitude: the popping and grinding in my right knee and hip joints whenever I stood up, bent down or took the stairs,” MacPhail wrote for the Guardian.
“I had imbibed the common positive ageing message: ‘50 is the new 30.’ Yet as far as the cells that make up my knee and hip tendons and cartilage are concerned, 50 is still very much 50.”
“For decades, I had done everything experts recommend – eat well, sleep well, exercise – and yet my doctor was still telling me it was time to adapt to my changing body.”
MacPhail pointed out that studies show a lot of people approach their physical fitness as if they were a decade or two younger, and as we get older, many people feel offended by the idea of changing their routine just because of their age. However, the risk is not worth it, as many individuals over the age of 50 can find themselves succumbing to injury if they don’t listen to what their body is telling them.
“As a medical anthropologist, I wondered: had anti-ageing messaging accidentally created a new problem? Was our generation at risk not from under-exercising, like the boomer and silent generations before us, but from over-exercising?”
Dr. Emily Finkelstein, a geriatrician, told MacPhail that individuals between the ages of 40 to 60 generally know how important exercise is for healthy aging, however, they need to take their personal bodies into consideration.
“Our muscle mass and our performance peak in our mid-30s, and start to naturally decline after that. We do need to be flexible in terms of what we’re doing and expecting of ourselves.”
When we hit the age of 45, we begin to lose muscle mass, thus decreasing our overall strength and balance. Additionally, a decrease in bone density also leaves the body vulnerable to injury such as stress fractures. Our cartilage begins to thin in our joints, with our tendons and ligaments stiffening, so it’s truly integral to adjust our physical activities to remain strong and healthy.
“The thing that people don’t know and don’t learn, is that aging begins at birth, and your abilities are definitely going to change,” Dr. Rosanne Leipzig said. “You reach a maximum for your muscle mass, bone strength, ability to remember a list of words, all in your 30s. And everything starts to decline after that. Ageing doesn’t mean that you can’t do what you did previously, but you probably can’t do as much in the same time period.”
MacPhail said this all doesn’t have to mean that we can’t keep pushing ourselves when it comes to our physical goals, it’s just important to be in tune to what our bodies are telling us and how they’re maturing.
“Most experts agreed that messages like ‘50 is the new 30’ can be helpful if they convince people not to write themselves off as they age. It’s OK to push ourselves a bit physically, but the flip side is an assumption that a 50-year-old body isn’t different from a 30-year-old body. It is.”
“In midlife, we should all learn to be more in tune with our bodies. That might mean taking more recovery time between intense workouts, doing more stretching and integrating more weights into our fitness routines,” MacPhail wrote.
“A healthy adaptive approach to exercising as we age might involve regular self-monitoring and assessment of how our bodies feel both during and after workouts, and seeking input from a qualified medical professional when we start to notice any signs or symptoms of an encroaching problem, such as pain or discomfort.
All of the experts I spoke to agree that pain should never be ignored – and it’s never a good idea to push through the pain without seeing your doctor. That being said, Finkelstein pointed out that most general physicians aren’t all that well-trained in exercise physiology.
For specific recommendations pertaining to exercise regimens, it’s better to see a physiatrist, specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation or certified physical trainer.”
“In our society, we have a huge problem with accepting the fact that things are going to change,” Leipzig said.
“People are in better shape in general than they ever have been, if they’re privileged enough to be able to take care of their needs, but it leads them to think they will never die. It leads to ageism,” Leipzig continued.
“‘Fifty is the new 30’ simply underscores our misconception that being healthy means not ageing at all. It would be healthier if we occasionally reminded ourselves that ageing is a privilege; that ‘50 is 50’ and ‘80 is 80’ – and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that,” MacPhail concluded, to read more of her thoughts, click here.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
