This 30-Year Health Study Has Some Surprising Results
We all know that exercising is one of the keys to living a long healthy life. But did you realise that a humble walk around the park every day not only brings big benefits, but may be better for you than intense bursts of gym-going?
That is just one of the findings of the longest study of women’s health in Australia. Several hundred women have committed more than three decades of their life to the Healthy Ageing Program, which began in 1990, and they’re still sharing their stories and knowledge.
The results to date have been compiled in Secrets of Women’s Healthy Ageing, by Professor Cassandra Szoeke. “This is 30 years of epidemiological research,” says Professor Szoeke, “so we’re looking at actual people out there in the community. We didn’t bring in fit people and put one person on this diet and another on another diet and tell you in six months who did better.”
Secrets of Women’s Healthy Ageing describes how women’s bodies age and has practical information about living better and longer. Its chapters cover the brain, exercise, nutrition, bones, stress and hormones.
Professor Szoeke says the research delivered astonishing results which included that the strongest predictor of long-term health is doing something small every day.
“It sounds kind of silly to say ‘women need to think about their health every day’, but it’s true,” she says. “Everyone’s job list is so, so long and to get health in there is the first challenge.
“We all know what to do, and we do it when we think about it, but we just don’t think about it every day.”
Health hypotheses were blown out of the water after analysing the vast amount of data from the women involved in the study. “We thought we were so clever as researchers, and hypothesised that if you did intense exercise, it would be better than if you just walked around the park.
“But the surprising thing is, that intense exercisers were not the ones who did best in our study. They were overtaken by people who did an hour of activity every day – every day for 30 years. So the message there is: choose something you love to do because we want you doing it every day for 30 years … and counting!”
Professor Szoeke’s two top tips for a long healthy life
Move more
“Vacuuming and running up the stairs counts as movement. Move as much and you can and when you have a choice, choose the active option. For example, we feel so time poor, we want to park as close as possible to an entrance but if you park a little walk away, you deliver to your health as well as getting chores done. Incorporate movement into the day-to-day instead of seeing it as something that has to be added on.”
Use premium fuel
“Our body is a machine so if you want good stuff out of it put good stuff in: fresh fruit and veg. Don’t eat sugar or added sugars and avoid high-fat fried food – but don’t worry about the fact you might butter your bread! What I don’t have in the book is any recipes but I’m really hoping readers can contribute recipes from the ingredients I talk about in the book!
Secrets of Women’s Healthy Ageing by Professor Cassandra Szoeke is published by Melbourne University Press.