I think the population they were referring to were active individuals who work out a little, eat well, and don’t drink alcohol. I didn’t see any mention of geographic area.
At some point you have to wonder about the costs. Denying yourself everything that's nice and pleasant, and exercising constant, total active control over yourself sure might prolong your life, but what's the point?
The thing is, drinking to excess, smoking, eating ‘badly’ just aren’t pleasures at all if you don’t do them all the time. It’s hard to take the perspective, but there is more to life!
Right, but that's the other extreme. Then there's everything in the middle, and most of that, unfortunately, do not form a kind of "healthy lifestyle" that has a chance to confer longevity benefits. So when people say, "just have a good diet and exercise regularly and sleep long enough and such" - it's a bit of a lie, because to do enough of these things to matter, you might be required to sacrifice the very things you value in life the most.
And I mean here both sacrifice the things you hold dear directly, or indirectly - which for us here is predominantly our careers and places of living.
Exaggerating a little bit to underscore the point: I could likely add years to my QALY lifespan if I moved to countryside, picked up more manual labor that required me to move my whole body, and went hiking in between going to the gym -- but, the things I value are found in cities, the work I like is white-collar, I hate hiking, and I also have people I love to support and lifespan-friendly labor generally doesn't pay enough.
Ultimately as much as we love individual responsibility, the truth is only the lucky few have the ability to freely choose their lifestyle. For the rest of us we have to conform to the unhealthy lifestyle that society demands of us.
To live a life that's even remotely healthy we have to dedicate a significant amount of the precious spare time we have just to undo some of that damage.
I do not believe we are predisposed to adopt sedentary lifestyles. As kids most of us are very active, but we are taught to be sedentary. Both academically and professionally we are most rewarded for sedentary activities: doing extra coursework, building your resume. Is it any surprise we develop a sedentary lifestyle when such a lifestyle is most rewarded?
I think rural life is too romanticized though. It will avoid the diseases endemic to sedentary life, but there will be different health issues instead. Preindustrial agriculture and generally jobs with lots of physical labor are not easy on the body. Coronary heart disease and maybe diabetes and dementia will be replaced by work-related injuries and arthritis. There is a reason many countries allow such people to retire earlier.
I don't get the contradiction? A healthy body will make it possible to enjoy all these things in moderation, be the company of your loved ones, and generally enjoy life for far longer. Making life just about the things that damage the body the most will have quite predictable consequences, no surprise there.
I still don't get it - do people think live is about smoking, drinking, taking drugs, burning in the sun, eating unhealthy, and sitting in a chair the whole day?
No, but it's also not the opposite - spending most time doing physical labor, hitting a gym, doing sports, running or hiking, while eating only the healthy, natural food - i.e. most bland and worst tasting food available, sleeping 8+ hours a day, and staying away from most technology.
(Oh, and walking covered in sunscreen all the time - except not, because that's technology and chemicals; though surely there's some perfectly natural, organic, non-GMO ointment known from ancient times that works even better...)
That's how the other extreme looks like - but unlike the "bad habits" extreme, this one is actually what's needed to make a noticeable improvement your QALY lifespan. It's also a kind of life I wouldn't personally find rewarding - hence the question, what's the point of living longer if you have to live like this[0]?
Between this and the fact that approximately no one can afford living like that today, I say the whole idea of living longer by "just" living healthier is a lie.
--
[0] - This lifestyle is basically the Edo people[1] from the infamous Star Trek: TNG episode "Justice"[2]. Chilling out in a paradise, keeping fit bodies, and basically running around all day in between of making art and having sex with others, sure sounds like an alluring lifestyle to us (and to the protagonists on the show). Still, this episode lets the viewer ask themselves - would they rather be with the Edo, or on the Enterprise? I'd take the latter, thank you - pretty sure I'd go bored shitless after a year in that place. And while United Federation of Planets isn't an available option, even the regular life in the real world seems much more interesting and rewarding to me, if you look past the immediate appeal[3].
[3] - See also: heaven in Christianity, which if you think more about it, is basically a place of infinite boredom - but it does look alluring to sustenance farmers of the middle ages, as it offered reprieve from the endless toil and oppressive lords.
Spending most of the day together with people whose company I value, sounds wonderful to me! There are plenty of sports out there and most people should be able to find something that they would both enjoy pursuing and strive to carve out time for it.
You can very well argue that a typical 40h work week leaves too little time to do enough of the good things. But most people would still most likely keep kicking back and using their time inefficiently even if we had to work much less than now.
Remaining too much time sitting in static positions is bad, sure. But people doing physical work are also exposed to massive health risks as usually the load is repetitive and uneven. Both populations need corrective action, but for the physical worker it is more tricky to add a workout routine because their bodies are already overtaxed.
Healthy food being bland and bad tasting is simply a sign of not being able to cook well. Learn stir frying and add some herbs, spices, and sauces. (Yes, sauces often contain sugar, but IMHO it's well worth giving up candy for better tasting real food!)
I hope you are aware that many societies displayed in Star Trek (and similar SF) are for storytelling purposes almost necessarily either oversimplified, have weird traits, or are caricatures reflecting something out-of-universe? For most of them we know very little about how daily life is actually like for a civilian. Of course it doesn't seem compelling to be part of any of these societies. And it is unconvincing to argue that a healthy lifestyle is necessarily one where we won't be able to have fun.
Anyway the point of that episode was to highlight the extreme cost of maintaining such a society, not the lifestyle itself. And of course it would be quite appealing to explore the universe in the comfort of a five star hotel, which living and working on the Enterprise-D surely must feel like.
What are you talking about? Doing these things is the only way to increase your quality of life and healthy lifespan, no amount money nor medicine will make up for abusing your body for decades.
These things are quite literally the leading causes of death and impairments in the west...
I've been exploring the current status of atom-level simulation of biological systems and it seems to be an even greater challenge than I expected. Apparently even MD is not as useful as I assumed because it doesn't model some important mechanisms such as bond formation and breaking.
