Essay On A Midautumn Night's Dream

Elsevier Editorial System(tm) for The Lancet
Manuscript Draft
Manuscript Number: THELANCET-D-14-07171
Title: A Midautumn Night's Dream
Article Type: Wakley Prize
Section/Category: Other Department: Essay
Keywords: The Wakley Essay
Corresponding Author: Ms. Nina Zisko,
Corresponding Author's Institution: Norwegian University of Science and Technology
First Author: Nina Zisko
Order of Authors: Nina Zisko
Manuscript Region of Origin: NORWAY
Abstract: Not applicable. This is a submission for The Wakley Essay.
A Midautumn Night’s Dream
It was one of those days that a PhD student encounters every once in a while. Things were not going as planned and Murphy’s law was proven correct once again. Ah, the life of a researcher! It was good to go home,

Horton” I said as I sat down and handed him his bowl” I would like to talk to you about active aging in the face of changes taking place in population statistics. I believe that there is a way to increase independence and health and decrease disability in the aging population relatively easily. I know that you read Milton’s Paradise Lost and that it left quite an impression on you as it did on me. One of the main themes of that poem is change, and so much emphasis is placed on change. Change on so many fronts, demons change Heaven for
Hell, they themselves change physically, Adam and Eve change. Change is inevitable. And yet as I work with aging I cannot dismiss Milton in my own line of work. Change is an ever present entity. We change as we age in so many ways, physically, mentally. And the society that we live in changes. As a society we are getting grayer. In her TED talk on human aging
Laura Carstensen said that more years were added to human life in the 20th century than all years added to human life across all millennia of human evolution combined. Interestingly enough incidence of non-communicable diseases did not decrease. So we are getting older but are not seem to be able to retain our health. That, of course, creates so many problems

Then the government stepped in and started regulating smoking by increasing the cost of cigarettes. They started banning smoking in public buildings. We should approach inactivity in a similar manner. Perhaps not as stringently as smoking but we could create incentives for people who do exercise. We could involve employers and governments. In
Norway for instance, workers are allowed to exercise one hour per week during working hours. That means that you are paid for exercising if you think about it. One must keep in mind however that incentives are not enough to induce long term behavioral changes.
Incentives should be combined with educational aspects to encourage learning and promote physical activity participation.”
“I think you may be on to something here”, he said.” Physical activity is more than just simply exercise or sport. We were designed to move and use the body that we were given.
Throughout history physical activity was part of our daily life because our sustenance depended on it. It is possible that genes involved in regulation of our metabolism were in fact selected as a result of oscillations in energy stores produced by cycling between feast and famine and rest and exercise. But now, through so called progress, we have moved away