Benefits of Physical Fitness at Every Age

Slow Down Aging

Being fit is one of the most important things you can do to ensure healthy aging. While chronological aging is inevitable, you can delay biological aging-- the processes that affect physical and mental function--through good nutrition and physical fitness. Regular exercise will help you live longer and make it less likely that you die prematurely or acquire disease or disability.

A Little Exercise is Much Better than None

Moderate levels of exercise drastically reduce your odds of illness and early death. The death rate is 3 times higher for those who are sedentary compared to those most fit group. The greatest difference occurs between those who do nothing and those who exercised a little which means that doing something is a lot better than doing nothing. Doing a lot of exercise is even better. (Blair, Kohl, et. al. JAMA,1989)


Being Fit Becomes More Important as you Age

The protective benefits of fitness increase as you grow older. Among those who were age 70, there is a sevenfold difference in survival between those who were least fit and those who are most fit. Among younger adults, this difference is much smaller. For a forty year old, being physically fit does not have much of an impact on mortality risk, but with advancing age, being physically fit confers increasing protective benefits against the major diseases associated with mortality.