[Atlas Sneezed]

I personally think we put on some weight as we age as a natural preventative against inevitable loss of weight in advanced senior years.

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I'd call that wishful thinking. We tend to put on weight when we age because we adopt a different health life style, becoming more sedentary.

Being skinny is the best way to live a long time. You notice how when they interview the 100-year-old man or lady that it's never a chubby person who lives that long?

[dawn53]

Being skinny is the best way to live a long time. You notice how when they interview the 100-year-old man or lady that it's never a chubby person who lives that long?

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Actually that is my point exactly when you see a very elderly person that is thin. As you age, you start to lose weight.

That 100 year old person you see them interviewing might have weighed a lot more in their 80's.

Case in point, my FIL. He lived to be 92. He was about 5'5", a little stocky at 165, healthy as a horse his entire life. When he hit his mid 80's we noticed he started to lose a little weight.

He had several cancer operations (sarcomas), lost more weight, but survived the operations and radiation.

Kept going strong right up until he was 92, at at 92, he was proportionately about right for his height at 140 lbs. (the thinnest he had been in his adult life.) Then he fell, and broke his hip, ended up with MRSA after the operation and died from pneumonia.

My great uncle is 95, he's been on the heavy side his whole life, but these last 5 years he's had a stroke, and some other health issues, yet he lives independently. He's lost weight with his illnesses, and now would be considered a healthy weight.

But with both these men, if they hadn't started out with a little extra weight on them, their bouts with illness, IMHO, would have weakened them more as they lost lbs due to the illness.

I'm not saying we shouldn't strive for optimum health, but if you eat sensibly, exercise sensibly, and still have a few lbs on in your later adult years, I don't think it's wise to try to starve yourself to get to a weight that the doctor thinks is healthy because some chart says so.

[seowulf]

So, you've got to eat like a rabbit to live forever. I think I'll eat the rabbit instead. Living to an over ripe old age is not a top priority.

[MadManDan]

Not all of them. Genetics has a lot to do with it in most cases. Eating healthy is a way to cheat genetics, but I have known 90 something people who are chubby. Some of them smoked for over seventy years too.

[editor-surveyor]

"You notice how when they interview the 100-year-old man or lady that it's never a chubby person who lives that long?"

You're confused!

Few people live passed 80 who were not 'chubby' when they were 60. most of the skinnies die in their 60's and 70's (those who didn't have massive heart attacks in their 30's, 40's, and 50's)