The Longevity Project Reflections

I enjoyed the anecdote about Ancel Keys at the beginning of Chapter 8 — it is amazing how much one person can accomplish and Keys certainly did not take life for granted. I like the approach he took in life, especially in his physical activity practices. When you first read that somebody is “very active,” you are probably going to assume that the person runs a lot or plays a certain sport often, but I never considered it from Keys’ perspective. Staying active in the service of interests, such as traveling or gardening, is a way in which I think many people who consider themselves “inactive,” would thrive, both physically and mentally.

The fact that the Terman participants were the first to ever have their physical activity measured from childhood through death seemed fascinating to me. I did not find it very surprising that their findings revealed that we should not rely on generalizations. It makes sense to me that every person has different physical activity interests and routines. I also think that genetics play a big role in the physical development of a person, so enforcing “rigorous exercise” among everyone will likely not work to the same effect on every participant. I still can’t believe the average person will spend roughly 900 days jogging, and as an active runner, reading this really made me think about how much time I have spent running so far in my life.

Although it has been mentioned before in the book, the fact that practices we assume are associated with good health and a long life are not always the causes of a healthy life is something I think many people would be shocked to learn. I have heard stories about people who are in the healthiest and most active stage of their lives and still get heart diseases, which I guess is a prime example of this idea that the link between physical activity and better health begins to deteriorate at a certain point in time. I appreciate the advice the authors provide and I feel as though I would recommend the same thing to somebody struggling to make themselves go to the gym. Exercise can be done in an endless amount of ways and even someone is simply spending a day at the mall, he/she is achieving both mental and physical goals at the same time.

Coming from a Colombian family, I have learned just how uncommon divorces are in Latin America. I feel as though I have grown up being told that if you get married, you will live longer. Although I do hope to get married one day, it is comforting to know that there is no scientific evidence proving this theory of marriage being connected to a long life. It was interesting to read about the differences among the men and women of the Terman study in the sense of their marital statuses. The case of John, who never even married and still outlived the remarried group, certainly disproves the idea that marriage leads to a longer life.

I admire Dr. Terman’s determination as he eventually developed his own “new marital happiness test.” Although I have never been married, the self-assessment portion of Chapter 9 stressed me out a little as I read it because it reminded me of how much goes into a marriage — in order for it to be healthy, at least. I was not that surprised to read that sexual satisfaction and a happy marriage are good indicators of health, but I did find it surprising that the man’s happiness is what will typically predict the health of the couple’s future, overall. I find this to be pretty sexist and would like to research further about it in the future. Personally, I believe this is something that varies case by case and depends on who the subjects that are being observed are.

Chapter 8 of the novel debunks myths and perceptions that people have about physical activity and the benefits to health. Generally, people think that exercising vigorously leads to longer life, however as it turns out, healthy fitness levels are more personal. Prior to this, no study analyzed the detail of physical activity across the lifespan.  As it turns out, more sociable children developed into more active adults. Those that were more neurotic grew up to be the opposite of active. Even though young childhood tendencies may have predicted how active you might become, the most important to health and longevity is being active in the middle ages. Another point made in chapter 8 debunks running for miles on end to be healthy.  For a person that jogs an hour every day, there is not likely to be much of a net gain in time and life. Also, those who are jogging unhappily is trading away hours of youth and activities they enjoy much more.

When reading this chapter, I instantly thought of my active lifestyle and running choices. Even though I trained for and ran in a half marathon, it was getting tedious in the end. I much rather spend physical activity time doing a team sport. Hence, why I am on the ultimate club frisbee team. We practice / play for 8 hours a week and travel to tournaments during the semester. When I grow older, I hope to adhere to my active lifestyle that I have now despite the stressors that may occur in the future. Perhaps the way to do so is joining an indoor / outdoor recreation league.

Chapter 9 goes to discuss how marital status relates to the longevity of life. It was interesting to see the methodology and reasoning behind how they came up with the 8 distinct categories. Instead of studying marriage as a single event or stimulus, the study analyzes it as something that occurs over time.  Like physical activity, mentioned in the previous chapter, marriage is complex, and reasons why individuals get and stay married are based on a “variety of personal reasons, social influences, and societal expectations (p.114).” In the end they found that divorced men were at much higher mortality risk. They inferred that the stresses of divorce, is one of the greatest social stresses, and can harm a person mentally and physically. Interestingly, the single men also outlived the remarried and divorced men. With women, it turns out that being divorced was much less harmful to women’s health than it was to men. Concluding this chapter, it ends with a chicken-and-egg-dilemma. They claim that a sexually and happy marriage can predict future health and longer life. Yet sexual satisfaction plays a part in a happy marriage, and a happy marriage impacts sexual satisfaction. Because of this circular argument amongst many in this chapter, more concrete evidence needs to be mentioned or shown from the studies.

Before reading these chapters, I was unaware that getting an early start is a “dead-end myth.” As with many of the other findings reported in this book, this came as a sort of surprise since I feel as though we are always trained to believe that those who get a head start in their schooling are the children who will have better educational performance. I am currently taking a Clinical Neuroscience class as well, where we recently learned about the case of Greg Smith — a boy who went to college at the young age of 10. However, he was not a genius because his parents enrolled him in pre-k when he was 2, so I understand where the researchers are coming from.

It was interesting to read that the Terman children who had divorced parents were more likely to get divorced as well. I personally think this varies depending on who we are talking about as I think it is more of a result of how the child is raised and who they end up marrying, of course. I also found it interesting that, for boys, positive family feelings were harmful and that these boys actually ended up living shorter lives. Again, I think this varies case-by-case, but I do not really understand how this positive support could result in a negative outcome. I think it is always important to observe the differences that exist between genders when we are considering factors, such as family influence.

I was generally pleased with chapter 6. That is, I did not feel skeptical or taken aback in reading it as I have felt in some of the previous chapters. The correlations found with kids starting school early and not being as properly socialized or well-rounded made fine sense to me and I can think of examples of guys/girls I have gone to school with in the past where these same observations are present. One of the main finds from chapter 7 was that “divorce during childhood was the single strongest social predictor of early death (p.80)” Certainly this can be a bit worrisome, however I do wonder what the average age of death was overall for non-divorce situations. Because if the average they lived to be was 85, and the average age of divorce children at death was typically 5 years prior, living a life to 80 is a full, I’d assume satisfying life… What I liked was that the authors touched on the other risk factors, many of which divorce often leads to, such as divorce in the participant’s own marriages, or the habits they adopted such as smoking affected longevity. Divorce of one’s parents was often a profound confounding variable.

As I said, I know of guys/girls who started early, like Philip of the Terman study, who have/had very similar characteristics to Philip. As we know as budding psychologists, early playtime in socialization in kids is crucial to development. I am thankful in the case of my brother and I that our parents started us off at the “normal age” of 5 and did not rush us through school and let us socialize and play with kids our age, despite are doing well academically.

My kids will start school at the age of 5 and I will do all I can to help ensure they turn out to be well-rounded individuals (academically, socially, athletically, and mentally). With regards to chapter 7 and divorce, I declare it upon my life and my future spouse and kid’s life there will be no divorce in the Roberson family—in Jesus’ name. And that’s that on that. Additionally, page 87 talks about the power of bouncing back and resiliency; I heard somewhere that life is 20% of what happens to you and 80% of how you react (I think I got that right…). So, a word of advice–always bounce back.

These chapters emphasized the importance of events that occur during our childhood that impact our longevity. Chapter 6 reveals that those who had an early start in their education are not going to necessarily live longer. For example, Phillip lost his playtime when he was enrolled into school at an early age. This may have been connected to his uneven performance at school as playtime is essential for a child’s development. Chapter 7 reveals how parental divorce is related to shorter life spans. Donna and Phillip both died at early ages and were exposed to different stressors related to parental divorce (ie Phillip’s mother and financial struggles).  However, there are others, like Patricia, who lead a long life despite her parents divorcing, possibly hue to her resiliency. Having positive family perceptions is also a strong factor. Chapter 7 is interesting because it shows the dichotomy children may face with parental divorce.  While the children are exposed to new stressors due to parental divorce, their resilience is related to how their life is impacted.

Chapter 6 really captured my attention as I have worked with kids at an early age believing that head starts can improve their life. Working at a daycare center, I would encourage the children to read harder books, build complex buildings out of Legos, and to pretend to be an adult. While all of these activities are all easily done by them, it is important to recognize the social costs of those who are comparatively younger than their peers. It is interesting to see that once age becomes a factor in the child’s success, there are social costs involved that affect the child’s education/longevity.  While this chapter is resourceful, I wish the authors reflected more on the quality of life for the more educated participants. While they did not necessarily live longer, were they happier? felt more fulfilled? feel less regret?

First, I’d like to address the finding concerning early age in school. I feel like it may be a little overgeneralized to say that starting school early is likely to lead to an earlier death. I think a better way of phrasing this finding would be that it would be more likely to cause an earlier death if starting school at a younger age was due to the motivation of the parents. For example, I learned how to read by 4 years old and was enrolled in first grade at 5. But that’s simply because I was a really avid learner from a young age. My parents couldn’t stop me from doing math and reading workbooks when I was younger and I would only ask to learn more. I think if learning is stemmed from a child’s genuine interest in education, then you can’t really say that they will end up dying younger due to a dissatisfaction with that decision.

I did, however, understand and agree with the fact that simply one’s level of education wouldn’t predict the age that they die. This finding simply goes back to my perspective that the age that you are likely to die at will most closely correlate with how satisfied you are with your life. If you didn’t want to go to college and you love the job that you’re doing now, then there’s really no reason that you would die earlier. Dissatisfaction with life by far will cause reckless and more risky health behaviors that will lead to an earlier death; simple as that.

As far as the chapter on divorce goes, I can definitely see how that could relate to dissatisfaction with life and an earlier death. We’ve always known that experiencing divorce at a young age can affect a child throughout their maturity and early adulthood. I did, however, find it surprising that the researchers didn’t foresee children with weaker family ties having an easier time adjusting to divorce. For me, that’s a no-brainer. If a child has a less positive family environment, the divorce of the parents is not going to alter that or cause much distress. Whereas, if a child really loves her parents together and values their marriage, it’s obviously going to cause some issues for her to adjust. I think that the relationships in a child’s environment are very important to a child growing up and can have a very strong effect on how a child will interact with others throughout both childhood and adulthood. Consequently, if a child has poorer relationships throughout their life, life is likely going to seem less satisfying, therefore potentially causing an earlier death.

Chapter 6 of The Longevity Project explores how early life events affect longevity. Interestingly, although early health advantages and disadvantages were not important to later health, several aspects of early life do affect longevity. Breastfeeding was found to have little effect on long-term health, something that surprised me as I would think early benefits of nutrition and parent-child bonding would set up a child for increased later success. As well, skipping a grade did not affect mortality. However, enrolling a child in formal schooling too soon was associated with a higher risk of dying early, potentially because of lost unstructured playtime that a child needs for healthy impulse control and focus development. Finally, level of education by itself was not a predictor of longevity, but other factors that went along with school success (such as persistence and creativity) promoted a long life. Finally, the authors reinforce that although patterns launched in early childhood are important longevity factors, these factors are not hugely important and can be altered later in life.

This chapter relates to my dad as he was enrolled in school at age six and then skipped several grades. Despite the fact that he was unusually bright, it is fortunate that my grandmother did not enroll him in formal schooling until the normal age, as doing so is associated with decreased longevity. I found it surprising that skipping a grade did not affect mortality, as I would think being the youngest child in a grade might create social stress that would negatively affect health.

This chapter relates to my perceptions of my future as aspects of my early life such as normal school enrollment time and my mother breastfeeding me were likely beneficial to my health. Despite this, as The Longevity Project details, these factors are relatively unimportant in predicting longevity, with other life factors having a greater effect on my long-term health.

Chapter 7 of The Longevity Project explores the effects of parental death and divorce on longevity. Strikingly, the death of a parent had no measurable effect on mortality risk while parental divorce was the greatest social predictor of early death. This may be because divorce can lead to lowered socioeconomic status. In addition, men with divorced parents were more likely to perform reckless behaviors that lead to early death and both genders had a higher chance of dying from disease. As well, because children from divorced families ended their education earlier, lower-educated men were more stressed trying to provide for their families, increasing their death risk. Those with divorced parents were also more likely to get a divorce and had fewer group memberships and community relations as adults. Unsurprisingly, adults from divorced families that succeeded had healthy marriages, avoided bad habits and were satisfied and interested in their vocations. Finally, I found it interesting that within men but not women, it was worst for health if they possessed positive family feelings and also had divorced parents, as this made split of a functional family particularly painful.

This chapter is relevant to several of my friends, as their parent’s divorces have led to financial hardship for their families. This compounds the stress of parental breakup by lowering access to higher-education and aspects of a healthy lifestyle such as nutrition. However, as described in The Longevity Project, it is resilience and one’s own choices that are most important in predicting longevity, meaning parental divorce does not make or break a person’s future.

This chapter also relates to my perception of my future as I am lucky enough to come from a stable home with happily married parents. This lack of home conflict has likely contributed to my healthy lifestyle and benefitted my longevity chances.

Chapter six and seven discussed the aspects of early life that play a role in longevity. Researchers found that breast feeding was associated with better infant health, but in the long run breast feeding made little difference. This finding did not surprise me because there are so many other factors that contribute to increased health in the long run. Such factors include conscientiousness, whether one smokes or drinks, exercise, satisfaction, etc. I was surprised to learn that those who started first grade at age 5 lived shorter lives, while those who skipped a grade did not. The researchers said that this finding revealed that something could go wrong if children were pushed too far, too fast. So I supposed this means that children who skipped a grade were ready to do so and that is why they lived longer. Another thing that surprised me was that children whose parents got divorced lived shorter lives than children whose parent’s died early on in life.  My parents are both alive and not divorced so I do not have any experience with either of these situations, but I have always assumed that death is more stressful on a person than divorce. The researchers made a good point that divorce can provide a relief to children if the house was obviously troubled before the divorce. But what if the house becomes troubled because of economic threat? Is divorce still a relief? To what extent? I feel as though economic instability could possibly be more stressful than emotional instability in the household.

I found it very interesting that children who started first grade at the age of 5 were at a higher risk of dying early than those who started school at the age of 6. I find this interesting because to me the age gap doesn’t seem that big. I would think that 5 and 6 year olds are able to relate with each other fairly well. I do understand that the younger children could be pushed by their parents to attend school at a younger age, but I am considered to be fairly young for my age but I still am able to relate with people a year older than me. In addition, I didn’t feel like my parents pushed me too far. I think that this finding depends on the amount of pressure parents put on their younger children because some children want to go to school earlier. I do agree that better educated individuals were more productive as they aged and they were more successful in their careers and more likely to continue to work. This may be because better educated individuals set themselves at a higher standard and set bigger goals for themselves.

In Chapter 7, it was interesting to see that children from divorced families died almost 5 years earlier than children from intact families. In addition, those who had experienced parental divorce reported fewer group memberships and poorer community relations when they became adults. This finding was interesting to me because I didn’t realize that divorce impacted a child’s life more than a parent dying. It’s strange that divorce can reduce lifespan by 5 years. The book doesn’t really go into detail about why divorce decreases lifespan other than the fact that divorce tended to lower the children’s standard of living. It would be interesting to see whether loss of contact with a parent after divorce has a direct effect on lifespan. The book says that children who lived through ongoing clashes and those who were shocked by a seemingly sudden split took things badly. It would be interesting to see if children with different coping mechanisms lived longer than others.

I think it’s safe to say that every parents wants their children to live long, healthy lives. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss how the decisions made by parents can have lasting effects on the longevity of their children’s lives. Chapter 6 talks about schooling, more specifically starting early. It is commonly believed by parents that having their children begin school as early as possible is only a positive. However, the authors made a shocking discovery that  this in fact is a myth. Children who began primary school, first grade, early were less likely to be conscientiousness adults and engaged in more risky behavior. These children are more likely to experience problems, due to the age gap from a young age. They will likely be less mature as their classmates, and be a disturbance in subjects that do not interest them. Though, the authors found that children who skipped a grade did not have this issue. Chapter 7 discusses divorce and the long term effects. It is commonly known that children of divorced parents experience issues in the short term. Yet, many do not know the effects in the long term. The authors uncovered the effects divorce can have on children’s longevity. It is almost common sense to know that children of divorced parents engage in more negative health behaviors than children of parents happily married. These children are also likely to repeat their parents and get a divorce, as well. However, the authors found that these children could almost reverse the blow of having parents divorce, if they went on to live satisfying lives. Relationships formed had a lot to do with how these individuals viewed their lives in mid adulthood. In men, the environment of the household prior to the divorce also had influence on how they recovered from the divorce. The divorce rates in America are currently climbing and sit at around 50% for first marriages. While this is becoming more of a norm, the effects of divorce on children have still remained the same.

I found both of these chapters very interesting. The statements made by the authors are pretty consistent in what I have experienced in the past.  While I didn’t start early or skip a grade, I was advanced for my age when I first began school. I didn’t go to preschool, and I started first grade at 6, but at a public school. I remember always getting in trouble because I would finish my work before any of my classmates and become very bored. This lasted 2 months before my mother took me out of that school, and place me in a private school. I was then placed in an environment where every kid was advanced, and even had kids in my class who were younger than the rest. The children that were a year younger when I first began school, were often the most troubling in my class, but also some of the brightest. The authors were also correct about children of divorce. While I never had to personally  experience the hardship of having parents divorce, some of my closest friends have gone through it. Some of these friends have engaged in behaviors I never once thought they would do. However for the sake of my friends, I hope they are the type that bounces back from the divorce of their parents and don’t repeat history.

These chapter provided some insight on how I may want to approach raising a child in the future. I would want the best for my son or daughter and am now more convinced to have my children start school at the normal age. If they are bright enough to skip a year, that would be pretty cool, but initially I want to provide the best chance of a long life for my future child, which would be starting primary school at 6. I would also like to provide the best home life for my child. I would hope to not put my child through the trauma of having his or her parents divorce, but that all starts from me and my future spouse. I also learned that it would be better to just get a divorce, if the family environment is a negative and destructive. However, if the family environment is positive it would be more advantageous to the children to stay together and not make them experience divorce. Even if their economic status is not effected.