The Healthy Minority

Over the past year I have noticed a widening age gap between myself and the majority of the people who workout at the same time as me each day. For some reason this thought popped into my head this morning on my drive in to work and I thought to myself, is the mid-to-late-20's the average age when people start to give up on their physical appearance? I can't help but notice that it does seem to correlate with the same age that people start to get hitched and have babies. I feel like I'm the minority now when it comes to healthy and fit living for my age group.

 

Full disclosure: I am now 28 despite having celebrated my 26th birthday for the past 3 years.

 

Why as a society does this seem to be so widely accepted? Is this issue equally a problem for both men and women? Is this an American thing? A Maine thing? Is my viewpoint simply skewed as my idea of what is "healthy" and "fit" has changed considerably since taking my fitness to the next level and becoming a competitor? I always hear people saying "once you have children your priorities change" or "my job has been taking up all of my time". Those just sound like excuses to me. I mean, physical appearance aside, do you really still feel good about yourself when you are exhausted and belting-in the growing tire around your waist from what is essentially malnutrition?

 

I thought I would pose these questions to all of you loyal gym rats after a similar discussion came up at work today. I had mentioned that my Grandmother's 90th birthday was coming up and my coworkers were surprised that she was still living on her own. It seems that spending your remaining years in a nursing home once you hit the ripe age of 75 is what our society expects. I don't understand why, if you remain active and eat nutritiously, you would suddenly not be able to take care of yourself! I mean, unless I develop some debilitating non-preventative disease I certainly plan to get in my daily dose of exercise until my last day. 

 

I shouldn't be complaining about feeling like I'm in the minority seeing as it's a great minority to be in. I guess I am just feeling like I have less and less in common with people my age. It's especially difficult being single when it seems like all the guys available are either way too young or have already given up on themselves despite not being tied down with spouses or children yet. The single life is a whole other topic though LOL. What do you all think? Why does our society so readily accept this quarter-century abandonment of one's health yet look almost disapprovingly toward those of us who make this our main focus?  I'm really hoping this topic will create some discussion below!