WHO defines healthy aging as “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables wellbeing in older age.” Functional ability is about having the capabilities that enable all people to be and do what they have reason to value. This includes a person’s ability to:
- meet their basic needs;
- learn, grow and make decisions;
- be mobile;
- build and maintain relationships; and
- contribute to society.
A healthy lifestyle preferably from an early age usually leads to healthy aging when old. Most people would like to have the wisdom of a healthy old person and physical looks of a young person, but healthy aging is about reasonable physical and mental fitness to be able to perform daily activities of living (ADL) as well as instrumental activities of living (IADL) and psychosocial skills.
We all want to age healthily, however the real question is how to do this? The process of healthy aging needs our conscious and active participation. Physical looks will deteriorate with aging but less rapidly with a healthy lifestyle. It is up to us to preserve our inner beauty even if outer beauty is not perfect but consistent with age. There are many ways to even preserve outer beauty and cosmetic surgery is not a must to look young. It is more important to stay young at heart and smiling, as every smiley face looks beautiful at any age.
Human bodies are programmed to heal even in the least expected circumstances and programmed to die when not expected at all, which process is more likely to be activated frequently depends on our lifestyle.
