Perhaps people who have a good attitude about old age are more likely to have had the experience of healthy parents and grandparents and thus are more likely to have genes that lead to a long healthspan.
"people who have a positive attitude about getting older, live longer"<p>The conclusion might as well be the other way round: people who have health problems when getting older are more likely to have a negative attitude about getting older and will probably die at a younger age than people without health issues.
I wish more people would continue living youthfully into adulthood, and continue to do so for as long as possible, with the limits of old age being an emergent phenomenon forced onto them rather than something they unwittingly eagerly pursued through laziness and boredom.<p>If you ride a bicycle every day, barring some injury forcing a prolonged break, you'll continue to be able to deep into old age. Anything we practice regularly we retain the ability to do. "Use it or lose it."<p>My fellow Americans in general tend to cease most physical activity once they get a driver's license. From that point on, it's a life of sitting in chairs of various forms, day in, day out. The body adapts to this, and by their 30s it's already non-trivial just to sit on the floor and get back up unassisted.<p>Don't stop playing outside, riding bicycles, running, frolicking, all the behaviors of youth - don't stop just because you're an "adult". Do this all, do it as much as possible, all of your life, until you're physically unable. This, in my opinion, is the dominant factor in aging well.