HEALTHY TO 100

Envisioning brighter futures for us all.

During the Great Depression, researchers at Harvard University undertook an ambitious investigation to determine the sources of health and happiness in American life. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has become the longest-running longitudinal health study in American history, and it continues to unearth data that challenges conventional wisdom about what makes us thrive. As Stern, an author and host of the Century Lives podcast, writes in his eye-opening book, “the researchers have concluded that there is a formula for a healthy life. It’s not weight, exercise levels, the quality of diet, or even income that most impacts healthy longevity. It is the quality of relationships, the social fitness, you might say, of the people involved.” With this in mind, Stern embarks on a journey around the world to explore living longer and well in countries where the elderly thrive, notably Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and Spain. What he shares are deep, instructive lessons that reveal how community, purpose, learning, and connection contribute to long lives well lived. For instance, there are nearly 20,000 centenarians in Spain; that figure is expected to skyrocket to 373,000 within the next four decades. The country is a “gold mine” for research, Stern writes. “The only difference researchers were able to identify between the super-agers and their normally aging counterparts was that the super-agers had higher rates of social connection and lower rates of loneliness.” In Japan, the author found, “work, purpose, and health are inextricably linked”—many seniors still work in part-time jobs. “It’s rather different in the West….work is more commonly associated with stress and ill health.” South Korea and Singapore, meanwhile, have launched programs that foster lifelong learning. “All of these approaches are linked by the belief that older people are not just marking time toward an inevitable end. They are part of a generation that has important things to offer society.”

Confronting social isolation, this work offers a way forward for long and meaningful lives.