On March 24, I’ll complete my 90th ride around the sun. I’m often asked to what I owe my longevity. I usually joke, “I chose my parents carefully.” As a geneticist, I know the genetic lottery plays a part.
I once interviewed a Toronto doctor who continued to treat patients after he turned 100. I asked what he owed his longevity to. “Porridge,” he replied. “I eat it every day.” He was serious, but his belief was anecdotal and proved nothing.
The scientifically documented key to a healthy long life is exercise. Studies show it reduces the risk of a wide array of conditions associated with old age, from diabetes, obesity and cancer to Alzheimer’s, stroke and heart disease. No drug, diet or treatment can match the spectrum or degree of reduced risk as exercise.
Like the doctor’s porridge, my personal record with exercise is anecdotal. Nevertheless, it’s been a critical part of my life and health, and science corroborates its benefits (as well as porridge’s benefits). I never set out to deliberately avoid medical issues from aging by exercising. I lucked out because of life circumstances.
The Second World War enabled racists and opportunists to goad Parliament to brand Japanese Canadians as “enemy aliens” — including those like my parents, sisters and me who were born and raised in Canada and had never even been to Japan. All our citizenship rights were suspended under the War Measures Act.
As the war ended, British Columbia saw an opportunity to eliminate part of the “yellow peril” by offering a choice to those incarcerated in camps: renounce citizenship for a one-way ticket to Japan or move east of the Rocky Mountains. My family had no choice because Japan was a foreign country and my sisters and I couldn’t speak Japanese.
In 1945, we ended up on a farm in southern Ontario. We kids picked berries and harvested vegetables to supplement the family’s meagre income. Farm work started at 7 a.m. At noon we took half an hour for lunch, then worked till 6, six days a week. It was hard labour, but I never felt it was terrible. It was physical activity. There weren’t gyms or fitness programs; we just moved.
After my family relocated to London, Ontario, I got a job in construction, shovelling gravel, carrying lumber, hammering and sawing to build houses. It was hard work but I loved it. I was buff.
I continued to work in construction on weekends, holidays and summers until I graduated from college in 1958. That year, I got a job as a fish biologist in northern Ontario. I later enrolled in graduate school in genetics and chose to study the fruit fly, Drosophila.
We’d spend a lot of time looking through microscopes — much different than shovelling gravel or hammering studs. I became rather pudgy. But it didn’t bother me — the excitement of research with my students was exhilarating.
At 35, I met my life partner, Tara, who’s still with me after 53 years. She was 12 years younger than me. A year after our marriage, I was flying from San Francisco to Toronto with a flight change at Chicago’s massive O’Hare International Airport. I landed at one end of the terminal. Air Canada was at the other end. With half an hour to make my connection, I grabbed my bag and began to sprint. Halfway to the concourse, I was doubled over, gasping and exhausted. I missed my flight.
It was an epiphany. I decided to enroll in a faculty exercise class.
At first, I mainly jogged, and was discouraged by how out of shape I was. When I met Tara, I smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol and didn’t pay attention to my diet. When I began to attend fitness class, I couldn’t even complete a track circuit without stopping. But I stuck with it and, over weeks, my body responded.
For years, I was into running. After decades of working out, I actually got down to my high school weight, although gravity, stretched skin and old age have reshaped me.
Today, elders are the fastest growing group in society. They should be recognized and valued for what they’ve experienced and witnessed. And governments should subsidize fitness programs and centres to help elders move their bodies.
David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.
