Your Birthday Tells Your Age. But How Old Is Your Body? Understanding the Growing Interest in Biological Age
We all know how old we are. It’s one of the first things we learn to answer as children, and eventually it becomes a number some of us would rather not talk about quite as much. But lately, I’ve been thinking about a different way of looking at age. Instead of simply asking how many years you’ve been alive, what if we asked how well your body is aging?
I recently returned from Shaklee’s annual conference, where healthy aging and longevity were a big part of the conversation. One of the things that caught my attention was the idea of biological age, sometimes called BioAge. It fits closely with many of the topics I’ve been writing about lately, including strength, nutrition, sleep, stress, and the everyday habits that influence how we feel as we get older.
Chronological Age and Biological Age Aren’t Quite the Same Thing
Your chronological age is simple. It’s the number of years that have passed since you were born. We can’t do much about that one. Biological age is different. It’s an estimate of how your body is functioning compared with what might typically be expected at your chronological age. Two people can both be 65 years old on paper, for example, but their health, fitness, mobility, sleep, strength, and other measures can look very different.
That shouldn’t be particularly surprising when you think about it. We’ve all known people who seem remarkably active and energetic for their age, and we’ve probably also known people who seem much older than the number on their driver’s licence. There are obviously things about aging that we cannot control. Genetics play a role, as do our individual health histories and circumstances. But lifestyle matters too, and that’s where this subject becomes particularly interesting.
What Influences How Well We Age?
Over the past few months, I’ve written quite a bit about healthy aging, and one thing continues to stand out to me: the basics matter. Regular movement matters. Maintaining muscle matters. Eating well and getting enough protein matter. Sleep and recovery matter. Managing stress matters. Even staying socially connected and having a sense of purpose can contribute to our overall well-being. None of those things will stop the clock, and that isn’t the point. The goal isn’t to avoid getting older. If we’re fortunate, getting older is something all of us will get to do.
The more useful question is what kind of health we can maintain along the way. That’s one of the reasons I find the conversation around biological age so interesting. It changes the focus from simply counting years to paying attention to how we’re actually living them.
A Different Way to Look at Your Health
One of the new tools introduced at conference was Shaklee’s BioAge assessment. Rather than looking only at the number of candles on your birthday cake, it provides another way to think about where you are today and the lifestyle factors that may be worth paying more attention to. What I like about that idea is that it gives us something more useful than a number. If an assessment helps you recognize that your strength could use some attention, your sleep could be better, or there are areas of your daily routine that could use some improvement, you now have somewhere to start.
I don’t think a biological age number should become another score we obsess over or compete about. Health is much more complicated than that. I see it as information, and good information can help us make better decisions.
The Goal Isn’t to Become Younger
I think this distinction is important because conversations about longevity can easily turn into conversations about trying to stay young. That’s not particularly interesting to me. I’m not trying to turn back the clock. I’m much more interested in making the years ahead as healthy and enjoyable as possible. I want to have the strength and energy to do the things I enjoy, maintain my independence, stay involved in my community, and continue living a full life.
That’s what healthy aging means to me. If knowing a little more about how my body is aging can help me make better decisions today, I think that information is worth having.
Final Thought
Your birthday will always tell you how many years you’ve been here, but it doesn’t tell the whole story of your health.
How we move, eat, sleep, recover, manage stress, and take care of ourselves over time all contribute to the bigger picture. We can’t control every part of aging, but as I’ve written before, we have more influence than we sometimes realize.
The goal isn’t to chase a younger number. It’s to use the information we have to take better care of ourselves today so we have the best chance of staying healthy, active, and independent in the years ahead.
And if there’s one thing I came home from conference thinking about, it’s that there is still a lot for us to learn about how we age.
I’m looking forward to sharing more of it with you.
Here’s to living well at every age,
Bob
Bob Ferguson
(913) 208−6357
bob@fergleads.com
http://appliedintelligencecoaching.com
