Dr. Walter Bortz placed an emphasis on exercise and physical well-being in the 57th annual Kirkpatrick Lecture at the Alumni Center on Thursday.
The lecture, "Dare to be 100," stressed the notion that a person's lifespan does not predominantly rely on heredity, but rather the lifestyle choices of the individual.
"It's not just the quantity of the years, but the quality," Bortz said. "It's not how old you are. It's how you are old. The alpha and omega of life are not ours to trifle with or worry about, so it puts all the attention on the two middle predictors, which are accidents and maintenance."
He said people should not focus on death or age, but on the quality of their lives and the aspects of physical well-being that may affect the outcome of their lives.
Gerontology and Wellness graduate student Emily Rein said people should heed Bortz's message about physical wellness being the key to a healthy life.
"You have to kind of believe what he's saying because he runs marathons and he's 80," Rein said.
Having participated in 40 marathons, Bortz uses his experience as an example of what people of any age can do to improve their lifestyles, despite what the results may be.
"It took me seven hours to run the Boston Marathon," he said. "I was the last finisher; there were 30,000 starters. I didn't care. I was proud of it."
Bortz, a clinical associate professor of medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine, is recognized nationally as a distinguished scientific expert on aging and longevity. The lecture was held by the Fisher Institute for Wellness and Gerontology.
Concluding the lecture, Bortz put more emphasis on the effect people have on the world around them throughout their lives.
"The one thing that will remain are the ripples of our lives," he said. "All of us are 'ripplers.' We're out there changing the currents of the world."
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