Middle adulthood, which beings around age 40 and ends about 65, is marked by narrowing life options and a shrinking future as children leave home and career paths become more determined. In this chapter, traces physical and cognitive development from the fifth into the seventh decade of life. Besides heredity and biological aging, our personal approach to passing years combines with family, community, and cultural contexts to affect the way we age.
1. One significant learning I wanted to mention for this chapter is "Health and Fitness." The textbook mentions, "In midlife, nearly 85 percent of Americans rate their health as either "excellent" or "good" -- still a large majority, but lower than 95 percent figure in early adulthood." This means that some people in the United States don't even know if they are healthy or not. I believe that some people in the United States just assume they are healthy because of their "body figures." But, sometimes that is not the case. Studies show that, getting a yearly check ups are a must to prevent diseases forming and other harmful lifelong conditions. I wanted to mention "Cancer" since it is the most common in the middle adulthood stage. From early to middle adulthood, the death rate due to cancer multiples tenfold, accounting for about 1/3 of all midlife deaths in the United States. Although, cancer decreasing, the rise of lung cancer is, because of a dramatic increase in lung cancer due to cigarette smoking or second hand smoking. For cancers, can affect both sexes, men are generally more vulnerable than woman.
2. There was a time in freshman year high school in health class, where my teacher told the whole class that we need to start eating healthy and doing some kind of physical exercise because our bodies will be changing drastically. At first, I didn't really listen because I assumed I was in shape because of my body figure. But, when our class started letting us do laps around the school, I could barely keep with all my classmates. I was probably one of the last people to finish my lap. That's when I knew I should keep a healthy living lifestyle and do some kind of physical activity. I joined our school basketball team and was able to be in shape. But, once sophomore year ended, I started slacking off because I got "bored" and got "lazy." It wasn't until then when one of my family members died from cancer. It was so heart-breakng because she was a very unhealthy person. If she should've just ate healthy and did some kind of daily exercise then she would still be here today. Cancer does suck, but if we keep living a healthy lifestyle then we wouldn't end up with one.
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