Yet another theory of ageing!

This is nothing to do with autism but, oh well anyway.

Some peculiar facts. Children conspicuously indulge in energy-wasting exercises with great enthusiasm. They see fences and walls as things to climb up, and buildings as things to run round two or three times. Adults by contrast increasingly tend to the opposite. As they age they get less and less enthusiastic about even just running along their chosen route. They are conspicuously very unenthusiastic about taking even a fraction of the exercise they need to keep healthy. They get overweight and unfit and start complaining about being cold, indeed become hypothyroid, whereas younger people think nothing of going out in the frost only half-dressed.

Some will tell you that the adults' reducing activity is due to their ageing. And yet in certain pre-industrial societies the adults carry on working well beyond 100, till they drop from genuine old age (at about 120 years). Some will tell you that the feeling cold and hypothyroid is likewise a symptom of the normal degradations of time. I disagree. Just about anyone's "hypothyroid" can be cured instantly by chasing them up the stairs to my 20th floor apartment. They'll then be complaining about being too hot instead.

Like all my medical theories, this new theory of ageing has a basis in evolution by natural selection. In evolutionary history, people have had to do a lot of hard physical work merely to survive. And have had to avoid getting injured. For these reasons, adults have evolved innate predisposition towards using their energy with high efficiency, avoiding unnecessary indulgence in work, and avoiding indulgence in unnecessarily hazardous activities.

Meanwhile, children have had less pressure of survival-work to do but do have to engage in the process of growing up which includes an expanding repertoire of physical capabilities needed for adulthood, such as being able to run and climb rather than just crawl. So young children are innately predisposed to engage in that physical training. Some sporty types retain such predisposition into later youth, but most eventually succumb to "age".

My view of all the above is that there is a new "ageing" syndrome which has arisen due to the reduced need for physical work in adulthood. The innate predisposition to efficient physical behaviour, what we might call laziness, now results in adults getting far less exercise (aerobic and strength training) than they need for good health. This in turn leads to their becoming obese, and to their becoming hypothyroid simply due to underactivity.

The cure for this new syndrome could be to introduce a new force of Exercise Police to chase all the adults round the block a few times a day. Any better suggestions? (Apart from banning cars until proven safe.)