Experts say you should get healthy by 36. I didn't — am I doomed?

Times

25-04-2025

News just in from Finland: you are what you eat. Researchers there have found, in a nutshell, that if you sit on your arse smoking, drinking, eating crap and taking no exercise, you'll be in a bit of trouble by the time you're 36, and a lot when you're middle-aged.
They tracked nearly 400 people throughout their lives and found they could eat, drink and be merry without consequences in their twenties. By their mid-thirties, though, it was taking a provable toll, from depression to heart disease. Their conclusion? Clean up your act before you hit middle age.
This is entirely unsurprising and sort of proves one of my pet theories: only the very young can have more than one vice. If you eat rubbish, or take no exercise, or drink too much, you eventually need either to compensate in other areas, or grow the hell up and realise that moderation is key. But still, 36 is pretty young for reality to bite when it comes to vices, and I had a few. Am I doomed?
• Party lifestyle takes its toll on health 'from age 36'
I was a late starter, which is both good and bad. I didn't start drinking until after I left university, because I didn't like beer or spirits and it didn't occur to me to drink wine. No students drank wine back then — maybe it hadn't been invented. What had been invented was smoking, so I started doing that aged 21. Interesting choice, looking back, developing a Marlboro Light habit in early adulthood, but I embraced it with my customary enthusiasm and was soon on a packet a day. But I always said I'd give up when I was 30 and I did, six years shy of the Finnish deadline, and haven't had a puff since. That's got to be a tick, right? Or at least not total doom.
Then there's food. I weaned myself off my sweet tooth during a long relationship with a man who didn't have one. Ordering pudding in a restaurant is no fun if you're eating it on your own, so everything sweet went out the window. Eventually, I lost the taste altogether, so that's another tick — plus my dentist loves me.
I do remember a first, faint alarm bell, maybe in my late thirties, when a doctor told me I was basically fat but slim. I think he meant that I had no muscle and some sort of invisible, underlying fat, but hey. My age still began with a 3. I was invincible. I checked my figure in the mirror and reached for another chip.
• The results of unhealthy lifestyles manifest sooner than expected
The slimness is not unconnected to my aversion to exercise, because I find gyms soul-sappingly boring. The thought of those ghastly weights machines, or doing a spin class, any sort of organised activity appals me. More importantly, if most people went to the gym to lose weight, and in my thirties they seemed to, why should I bother?
But then I celebrated my 40th with a cancer diagnosis. We needn't trouble ourselves here with the tedious details of that year, except to say that after surgery I was swollen. I think it was called an oedema, and whatever it was called, it would not go away. I forget all the things they tried, but I know they tried everything, for months, until one day a doctor looked up from my notes and said, 'You could always try swimming', so I did. Finally, I'd found an exercise regime and, when the swelling had gone, I realised I was swimming not for my figure, or my fitness, but my head. It's been more than a decade now, because when you're face down in a pool you can think about everything, or nothing. It's a 40-minute digital detox. Bliss.
These days, the chips are fewer and further between, wine has definitely been invented and I've had to curb my enthusiasm for bread. I still think a cup of tea and a Marlboro Light is the greatest breakfast in the world, but I stick to the tea, and overall, I think the Finnish researchers would be pretty pleased with me.
I went to an incredible health spa place last year, where a nutritionist insisted that chickpeas and lentils are just as nice for lunch as a sandwich. That's simply not true, but sandwiches and toast are now a treat, and the weight I lost there has never come back. As for the rest of me, they analysed everything and fingers crossed, it's looking good. I once asked my oncologist if I could still drink wine and eat bacon, or if I should change my job, avoid all stress and eat nothing but broccoli. He looked at me, appalled. 'Live your life,' he said, so I do. Everything else is luck.