In today’s world, we have a tendency to separate the many facets of health— we have a governmental agency for diseases ranging from cancer to mental health, but fail to examine health in a more holistic manner, and explore the ways that these diseases may overlap. For this reason, a new term wellness was developed to encompass the human aspects of health, as opposed to trying to cure only the disease. The authors have discovered that there are certain patterns and pathways that individuals follow that increase their lifespan; studies have shown time and time again that while targeted pills are important if you have developed a specific disease, it is equally important to focus on things like family, social relations, and work environments.
It was interesting, but not surprising, that taking the “high road” and being persistent, coming from a stable family, and being a thoughtful planner led you on a healthy path. I consider myself someone who comes from the “high road” because I come from a loving and stable family and also score very high on the conscientious scale, and tend to plan a lot. However, it’s important that being on an uneasy street does not guarantee a shorter life either; Norris Bradbury, who oversaw the nations nuclear arsenal was still able to thrive because regardless of the stress of his job, he was successful and had ambition. Carefree and unambitious individuals were more likely to have a higher mortality rate.
Epilogue
The authors state that many people tend to overestimate the roles that genes and family history play in an individuals health. Although this may serve as a predictor for which diseases one is at risk for, what matters more is the individuals life path. They also discredited the role that physician recommendations have on long life. Most people do not follow the doctors orders when they are given a list of what to do. Instead, what tends to work is incorporating healthy habits into ones already established lifestyle.
I completely agree with this–although it is obvious that family history and genes influence health in terms of risk for disease, it seems as though most people don’t think about the role of our own individual choices and personality traits. The Longevity Project does a great job of exploring the ways that conscientiousness, ambition, perceived stress, and many other factors contribute to longevity, and how impulsiveness, lack of ambition, and engaging in risky behaviors lead to a shorter life. Health is not just about exercising often and eating right; it is a compilation of many other factors in our lives that we tend to gloss over.
I appreciate how the authors included a section on Dr. Terman’s biases, and how he failed to include segregated minority groups in his study. Surely in today’s world, race and socioeconomic status plays a huge role on health, and it would have been interesting to see how this plays out in the findings.
I agree that people forget to address wellness as a whole, and not just a specific disease or abnormality. I also enjoyed that the authors of this book incorporated the importance of social relationships in longevity, and not only the biological aspects of disease. I also thought it was not surprising that being persistent, coming from a loving family, and scoring on on the conscientious scale factors into longevity, but it was interesting to read about different stories of the Terman participants.
Overall, I agree that the book did a good job the various healthy social and physical factors that go into longevity. I deeply respect and appreciate how Dr. Terman was able to include women in the study in a time when women did not have voting rights, but I also wish he included minority groups so we can see the individual differences in minority groups and not directly attribute findings from a white American population to the general public.
It’s interesting that when I read about Dr. Terman’s biases that he failed to include segregated minority groups, I tended to think of women or people from low social-economic status. However, the races didn’t came up, maybe because in race is not a major social problem in China. I think it’s very important to take races into consideration for the U.S since it is such a big issue here, which made Dr. Terman’s biases more serious.