How to live to 100

Jon Snow, the Channel 4 journalist, retired from presenting the Channel 4 nightly news bulletin in 2022, aged 75.

He has made an interesting two-part documentary series, ‘How to Live to 100’ which was broadcast in January 2023.

In the documentaries he travels to three different communities which have demonstrated above average longevity; a Greek island, a Japanese village and a town in the USA, to try and understand the secrets behind the longer lives of people who live there.

His experience mirrors the work undertaken on so-called ‘Blue Zones’ where people live longer. 

Snow found that a healthy diet and regular exercise were contributory factors. What was particularly interesting though was the way in which the elderly were included in the community and not treated differently. They also seemed to have a clear sense of purpose, which their community involvement gave them. 

Snow went to meet an octogenarian retired doctor who had taken up sailing and arranged to meet the presenter by the water. Rather than give a specific time, the doctor said he’d be there “in the morning”. “We have three times: from sunrise to noon, from noon to sunset, and then from sunset to the next sunrise,” he explained. “This is our time, not the clock.” 

The full series can be found on All4, the catch-up service of Channel 4. 

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/how-to-live-to-100 

Would you like to live to 100? How well do you think our society will cope with more centenarians?