Many people would describe health aging as a physical characteristic. Society has an image that if you have wrinkles and your old, or if your hair is shedding and your old, then your considered being unhappy and a decline in aging. Society tends to look at the physical characteristics instead of the mental and emotional characteristics. Many people fear getting old because of this social norm that if you don’t look young and healthy, then your life is “pointless” and unhappy. To me this is not true, I believe healthy aging is defined as being happy with your life (from young to now). Also being connected and engaged with your community is also a big connection when it comes to healthy age. Happiness is key. I believe that if you are happy with how your life turned out or even in that moment, it gives you the high self-esteem about yourself because you feel as you accomplished a lot. This also connects to the point that having a purpose in life contributes to being happy. Having a purpose also makes you happy because you are surrounding yourself with things that contribute to your success or purpose. I believe that this idea is true because having a purpose in life gives you the energy to wake up each day and make each day significant. I also believe that healthy aging is connected to being engaged with society because it brings you happiness. Think of you being alone in a room. You would feel lonely in that room. Now think of being in a room full of people, you would rather be in a room full of people, because your engaged and around other people. It has been proven that loneliness leads to depression, which is why older adults tend to want to be around their family because it prevents them from feeling lonely and left out. My grandmother has influenced my perspective on healthy aging. She’s 70 years old and still finds ways to be active in the community. She always tells me it’s what keep her life going because she’s still being active and involved at her age.
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Conversations on Healthy Aging 
I agree with this post on the fact that healthy aging is defined by the state of happiness that one is in. When you feel happy you are a healthier and better version of yourself. This trend can also be seen with the current issue we have going on regarding the COVID-19. My Grandmother is also around the age of 70 and is constantly keeping herself occupied and active. However, with this whole lockdown situation, my grandma has become extremely unhappy and even depressed as her whole routine has been shaken up. Happiness is definitely a key to healthy aging and I really enjoyed your discussion. Thank you!
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I agree with you when you said that happiness is key for healthy aging. I also said this in my post. I think that if someone is happy that they will age very well. I really enjoyed your discussion!
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I agree with your thoughts on the fact that happiness is important to healthy aging. I mentioned something similar in my post. Being happy allows you to want to experience more things throughout your life and also lets you enjoy them more. I also like the fact that you brought up how loneliness can lead to depression because I think that is very important to keep that in mind about especially in a time like right now where we are having to go through social distancing because of COVID-19.
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I agree with what you had to say about social norms. It’s interesting that typically people do fear getting older because of some there might be some stereotypes on aging based on physical characteristics such as wrinkles or hair shedding. I agree that we do need to educate people on the mental characteristics. Being happy is being healthy. I also love your aspect on being engaged with a society. It’s important to have contact with someone. It’s definitely more difficult in this time.
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