OK, let’s raise our glass to a long and healthy life. But let’s not do it too often, or it may be shorter and less healthy.
We can’t know the future. But we can have some influence on an important part of it. Choices we make can influence our life expectancy. The same choices can also influence something talked about much less. Our healthy life expectancy is the years of healthy, undisabled living ahead of us.
Testing for healthy life expectancy
You can test this out by using an online calculator. You can find it at the Janet and Mark L. Goldenson Center for Actuarial Research at the University of Connecticut. While there are a multitude of life expectancy calculators, few provide an estimate of the healthy years of life you have ahead of you. This one does both.
But before we go further I need to clarify something. When someone talks about “your” life expectancy, they are not talking about you personally. They are talking about the life expectancy of people in a group with characteristics like yours. Some will die sooner, some later. But members of the group as a whole can be expected to live about as long as their expectancy.
Income and education are a good start
More income and more education, for instance, generally puts you in a group that will live longer than people with less income and less education. But I bet you know some exceptions. I do.
So, with those caveats, let’s check out the calculator and see what it tells us. The good news is that requires only 14 fact items and it doesn’t ask for your name and email address. So your information won’t be sold to any number of health advertisers.
What the calculator says about me. Who knew?
This 79-year-old male college graduate, for instance, can expect another 8.1 future healthy years. That’s about 13.5 percent above average. Unfortunately, I can also expect to have an unhealthy 3.3 years or a total life expectancy of 11.4 years.
That would have me living to 90.4 years. Remember now, this is not a schedule. It’s just an indication of what’s in store for a group of people with similar habits to mine.
Can changes in habits change the predicted years of healthy life and unhealthy life?
Tweaking a few habits pays off in years of healthy life
Yes. When the calculator spits out your results, it also tells you the most productive levers. It told me that I could live longer and healthier by (1) drinking fewer than eight drinks a week, (2) by exercising a bit more and (3) by losing some weight. The choices are listed in order of impact.
The impact of those changes would increase healthy life expectancy to 12.9 years while reducing unhealthy years to three. That’s a healthy life expectancy that would be 80.7 percent above average and a total life expectancy of 94.9 years. The gain amounts to 4.5 healthy years.
That tells me there’s a really big payoff just tweaking some habits toward healthier living.
Are the results guaranteed?
Of course not! They’re just an indication of how much small choices can do for our lives.
More reading on age and longevity:
Scott Burns, “Life is (Still) Worth Living after 75,” 11/2/2018 https://scottburns.com/life-is-still-worth-living-after-75/
Scott Burns, “How much is a future year worth?” 10/27/2018 https://scottburns.com/how-much-is-a-future-year-worth/
Scott Burns, “Trust me, your retirement will be longer than David Bach predicts,” 10/12/2018 https://scottburns.com/trust-me-your-retirement-will-be-longer-than-david-bach-predicts/
Scott Burns, “Longevity of the nerds,” 1/24/2016 https://scottburns.com/longevity-of-the-nerds/
Scott Burns, “The Hedonic Clock,” 10/24/2014 https://scottburns.com/the-hedonic-clock/
Sources and References:
Healthy Life Expectancy Calculator at the Janet and Mark L. Goldenson Center for Actuarial Research: https://apps.goldensoncenter.uconn.edu/HLEC/
This information is distributed for education purposes, and it is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product, or service.
(c) Scott Burns, 2020