Could Your Childhood Habits Affect How You’ll Age In Your Senior Years?

If you were overweight, smoked, or had a psychiatric condition throughout adolescence, a recent study indicates that you may age more rapidly than your contemporaries as an adult.

According to a research published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, youth aged 11 to 15 who’ve been obese, smoked frequently or had a psychiatric condition such as anxiety, melancholy, or ADHD matured physiologically approximately three months quicker each year than their peers.
The study analyzed data from 910 individuals in the Dunedin Study, a long-term study that followed the health and behavior of children born between April 1972 and March 1973 from the age of three to 45.

By age 45, individuals who had two or all of those three main health issues as teens — smoking, obesity, or psychiatric illnesses — paced 11.2 centimeters/second slower, seemed to have a two-and-a-half-year older brain age and a nearly four-year older face age than others who did not.

Additionally, the research addressed a fourth health problem, with wildly divergent findings. Those who had asthma throughout adolescence – the majority of whom received treatment – were not physiologically older at age 45 than those who did not have asthma.

Individuals with mental health difficulties are much more likely to engage in less physical activity and consume a poor diet, both of which have been linked to accelerated aging. We conceive of depression as an illness that starts in the brain as a result of chemical imbalances and other factors. However, depression is most likely a systemic condition affecting the whole body.

Adolescents suffering from any of these problems may benefit from early therapy on both a mental and physical level. We know that premature aging is related to a variety of health problems. If we can cure these diseases and reduce people’s aging, this will have a positive effect on their health throughout their lifetime and, in fact, across their whole body.