Lifestyle and medical advances that contribute to longevity are achievements to celebrate, but they have brought considerable and unintended social, economic and health challenges as life expectancy increases faster than life-years spent in good health. In this context, healthy ageing – defined by WHO as a process of developing and maintaining functional abilities to foster well-being in older adults – not only increases the welfare of older adults, but also directly influences health-care and long-term care costs.
Although health status in older ages mainly is dependent on lifestyles determined during adulthood and youth, the level of physical activity and quality of diet in older age are also important determinants of health, well-being, functional ability, mobility and independence. For most older people, healthy ageing means much more than just the absence of diseases; it also represents the maintenance of good functional ability.
This report advocates for investment in promoting healthy lifestyles in the older population to encourage active healthy ageing and increase healthy life expectancy. Inspiring examples of innovations in promoting physical activity and healthy diets from across the WHO European Region are presented to support implementation and scale-up of interventions by Member States.