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💬 [B]old People: Do you want to live to 100?
According to a "Death Clock," I'll live to 95. But how many of those years will be healthy ones?
Welcome readers, old and new! Please don’t forget to tap the little ❤️ above or below. It helps other readers find [B]old Age and it might help you live longer!
I hope you’ll read today’s post and respond to the discussion questions below. But if you’re in a rush, here’s a quick poll asking one question:
Both of my parents died recently, each in their early 90s. But both began to decline noticeably years earlier, in their late 80s. While it was painful for me to watch, it was undoubtedly miserable for them. That’s the main reason I don’t truly aspire to live to 100, a desire we’ve heard a lot about from Silicon Valley billionaires.1 The prospect of old, old age is scary for me: the physical weakness and disability, deteriorating mental faculties, dementia, dependence on others, so many limitations on what you can do.
And although lifespan is increasing around the world, healthspan2 is not; in fact, on average there is a nine-year gap3 between healthspan (the period of life in good health) and lifespan. In other words, the last years of life are often marked by disability and illness. That is a very sobering reality and certainly something I witnessed with my parents. My own declining strength in my 70s is both surprising and unnerving.
I had to stop myself from going down too many rabbit holes for this post but I couldn’t resist a few life expectancy calculators… I checked with the U.S. Social Security Administration’s calculator, and was told that, at age 73, I can look forward to a tad under 15 more years. According to the UK’s Office of National Statistics, my average life expectancy is 89, giving me 16 more years.
Neither one of these is a firm prediction, of course, because so much depends on my current lifestyle, health, and family history. Still… even though I don’t fully believe these lifespan estimates, they reverberate annoyingly in the back of my head. I feel greedy, illogical, frustrated; I want MORE… more years, more life, more time with my husband, children and grandchildren; and I also want continued good health.
Inspired by a recent article by journalist and author Steven Petrow, I also decided to check out the Death Clock. I resisted testing this app for quite some time (did I want to know??), but finally decided what the heck. At least I got a better answer: death at age 95.
What about you? What are your thoughts about how many more years you want to live?
Questions for discussion
Do you want to live to 100? (Take this quick poll and see the results)
Whether or not you want to be a centenarian, what habits are you adopting now to increase your healthspan?
Have you cut back or stopped drinking4 altogether – or are you contemplating doing so? (Curious about doing this myself.)
If you had to pick a target age you’d like to get to, what would it be? For me, it would be about 95, assuming my health remains good. Here’s hoping the death clock is correct.
Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Peter Thiel are among them: These Billionaires Want to Disrupt Death—and Keep Their Fortunes Forever (Mother Jones, Jan-Feb 2024)
Healthspan vs. Lifespan (NICE: National Initiative for Care of the Elderly in Canada, April 6, 2025)
Global Healthspan-Lifespan Gaps Among 183 World Health Organization Member States (JAMA Network, Dec. 11, 2024)
No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health (World Health Organization, Jan. 4, 2023).
Interesting Debbie! But firstly, im very sorry to hear that you recently lost both parents. That’s tough!
I’m writing a piece right now about the healthspan v lifespan gap too— your 9 years closely aligns. That’s a bloody long time to live without capability and life quality! No thanks!
My angle is how exercise can flip the marginal decade to the bonus decade.
My “plan” is to go hard and strong til the end then suddenly fall off the perch (hopefully while whistling) like the old bird that I hopefully will be.
Crikey! I just used the Death Clock calculator, according to which:
You will live to be 103 years, 3 months and 28 days old!
(In the small print below, it says Avg life expectancy of other Female testers from Switzerland with your BMI: 93.5 years old, which is a bit less scary.)
I have had a lot of health issues in the last two decades and still schlep a few chronic conditions with me, though they are currently well managed. The last big horror was nearly losing the ability to walk or control much below the waist, solved with spinal stenosis surgery three years ago this summer. The gradual and frightening run-up to that and the subsequent long recovery gave me a glimpse of what it might be like to physically fade away.
Coming out on the other side of that both caused and enabled me to make a lot of changes in my life. Working with my GP, a nutritionist, endocrinologist, physiotherapist, and weight trainer, I changed the way I eat (in a nutshell: more protein, smaller meals, way less to almost no alcohol), worked on proprioception and balance, built up muscle, became more physically active again. These are all things that I now know are permanent changes in the way I live, not just some post-op recovery plan.
In a couple months I turn 60, spring chicken that I am, and feel like I have lived several lives already while simultaneously believing I have a fresh start now with another life or two still ahead. It's an odd feeling.
My mother died way too early, taken at 74 after quickly capitulating to pancreatic cancer. If I imagine that I may only have another 15 years, I feel like I am treading water right now and want to get on to my next (phase of) life pronto. If, as the Death Clock suggests, I have another almost 44 years: well, I am exhausted just thinking about that.
I'd like to hit 90 while still healthy. My mother-in-law turns 90 this autumn, and is leaving next week for a month in Mongolia. It is her eighth trip I think (her first visit was in her 70s) and she hangs out with her adopted nomad family in a yurt in the Altai. That is the energy I want.