[quote=spdrun]Not so simple:
If everyone will be driven door to door with little walking and little cycling, we’ll end up with more obese cripples with bad knees at age 55, not healthier people. Policy should exist to encourage exercise and human mobility as part of urban design — it’s a lot easier to exercise when you have no choice vs going to the gym and running like a hamster on a bloody wheel.

Policy should be towards better health care and urban design so that most people don’t have to live as long as cripples before they kick the bucket. People usually don’t end up crippled when they’re old if they’ve made good choices.

Blindness often comes from diabetes (due to inactivity), so do things like kidney and walking impairment. Which is a nice way to say losing limbs.[/quote]

For once I basically agree with you. But, for example, my MIL (who I love) is 93 and sharp as a tack. She is also very proud and likes to be independent. Unfortunately, the cartilage in her knees is gone – and health conditions prevent knee replacement. So she has a hard time going out and can’t drive – and it bugs her to death. I agree healthy habits should be strongly encouraged, but at some point we will all need help.

According to a statistic I read years ago, children born in 1999 were the first to have a 50/50 chance of living to be 100. Bodies were not meant to last that long and regardless of habits, the majority of people will develop disabilities when they live past 80 or so. My dad was lucky – he was still walking a few miles a day at 84 when he developed a very rapidly progressing terminal illness. He only lived a few months in a diminished state. My mother, on the other hand, has had numerous auto immune illnesses (seems to be correlated with having kids, which I guess is a choice) which have incapacitated her. Their habits were very similar.

We want to believe we have control over these things, but genetics plays an enormous role . . .

And in terms of not wanting to get old, Roger Daltrey is 71.