What is healthspan? And why trainers should talk about it more often.

One thing we rarely talk about is healthspan. There are lots of people involved in physical activity, but most don't know what healthspan is, and why it is more important than lifespan, in my opinion. Healthspan is defined as the period of one’s life that one is healthy or free from serious disease (Tim Peterson, 2017). It is argued that healthspan is more important than lifespan. “If one is past their healthspan, it means they are chronically sick, often with a degenerating condition. Therefore, most people would agree that staying within their healthspan is desirable” (Tim Peterson, 2017).

To be completely honest, I had no idea what healthspan was until recently learning about it through my course at school. But after reading about it, I definitely think there should be more focus on improving people’s healthspan than their lifespan for many reasons, the most important being that an improved healthspan will lead to an improved lifespan, because they go hand in hand. Compared to lifespan, a lot is not known about healthspan because we don’t have a statistic to mark the end of the average healthspan. So how can one improve their healthspan? “Maintaining a healthy balanced diet with moderate, regular exercise and without smoking and drinking alcohol is the surest way to promote one’s healthspan and limit the onset of most diseases”. Other determinants of one’s healthspan are their social, intellectual, and physical activities as well as dietary and cellular components such as fatty acids, glucose and antioxidants. (Tim Peterson, 2017)

References:

Peterson, T. (2021, February 19). Healthspan Is More Important Than Lifespan, So Why Don't More People Know About It? Institute for Public Health.

https://publichealth.wustl.edu/heatlhspan-is-more-important-than-lifespan-so-why-dont-more-people-know-about-it/.