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Want to Be 100? Listen to These 5
Centenarians(百岁老人) Five neighbors at a central Missouri retirement community who are all centenarians get asked all the time: "How did you live to be 100?." If you want to live to 100 or more, this rare group of five golden girls says the key to longevity (长寿)is working hard at a job you love and taking care of your body while you're at it. Even though an estimated 70,000 people in the country are currently at the century mark or be yond in age, it is unusual to find five 100-year-olds living in one place. The average life-span(寿命) of Americans is about two or three years short of an 80th birthday party. And most people don't want to cut out coffee, soda, alcohol, cigarettes, and eat healthy food. "People tell me all the time, 'I don't want to live to be 100,'" said Mildred Leaver, who turned 100 in June. "I think that's just sad. Aging is attitude and I don't feel old," said Leaver, a former educator who still drives her Buick around town. It doesn't take long to see that Leaver and her neighbors Mildred Harris, Grace Wolfsan, Gladys Stuart and Viola Semas, have a lot more in common than their longevity and lifelong healthy habits. All are 100 except Stuart, who is 101. Even though their sight and hearing aren't what they used to be, they've all avoided illnesses that many elderly people are stricken with. It's been 50 years since Leaver beat cancer for the first and only time. The common thread that connects these women is the decades of service to jobs each loved as a farmer, designer, school principal, bookkeeper and secretary. In the early years of their lives, gain fully employed women like them were just as rare as 100-year-olds are today. |