How can we ensure that we stay healthy, even as we age? In their new book ‘A Guide for Growing Older’, professor Rudi Westendorp and David van Bodegom MD PhD present a practical recipe: small changes in your daily environment can make you live longer and healthier.
Many health problems such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis seem inevitable, but they result mainly from our lifestyle. And the environment dictates that lifestyle. Due to the mismatch between our ‘old’ genes – our evolutionary legacy – and the modern environment, we are unable to resist the constant temptations around us. That is why blaming and shaming does not work.
We have to let the environment do the work. By making smart changes at home, on the road, at work, at school, and in the neighbourhood, we can – unconsciously – make the easy choice the healthier choice. In A Guide for Growing Older – Let Your Environment do the Work, the practical sequel to the bestseller Growing Older Without Feeling Old, Westendorp and Van Bodegom provide a series of tips for a longer healthy life. Each chapter features a full-colour illustration and the Dutch edition also includes a handy pull-out A3-sized poster, summarizing all the best tips.
A Guide for Growing Older (‘Oud worden in de praktijk’) was published in the Netherlands in September 2015 by Atlas Contact. An English edition is expected later in 2016.
About the authors
David van Bodegom (1978) is an ageing researcher at Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing. Van Bodegom a medical doctor and historian. He and is convinced that the public environment rather than the consultation room holds the key to healthy ageing.
Rudi Westendorp (1959) is an internationally respected doctor and researcher and former director of Leyden Academy. In the bestseller Growing Older Without Feeling Old (2014, over 50,000 copies sold) he described how the ageing process works, that we will enjoy longer, healthier, and more productive lives, and how we can greet it with confidence. Westendorp now lives in Copenhagen, where he is affiliated with the university as Professor of Medicine at Old Age.