India’s Ikigai: The Old Know Better But The Young Don’t Care’

India’s oldest people attribute their longevity to eating nutritious food, staying active, socializing and sound sleep as per the GOQii India Fit Report 2020. These attributes were the common contributing factors for leading a long and healthy life according to ninety-year olds and centenarians who participated in the study from across the country. The elderly people also believed that eating home-cooked and fresh, local and seasonal vegetarian meals at fixed and regular intervals played an important role in their day-to-day regimen. Dairy especially milk, curd, and ghee emerged as kitchen superheroes for this age group. The centurions also believed that having a hobby, being the social and content enhanced the quality of their lives. The current state of India’s health and how far away India is from the goal of having a long lifespan is indicated in the ‘GOQii India Fit Report 2020 - India’s Ikigai: The Old Know Better but the Young Don’t Care’.

GOQii, the smart-tech-enabled preventive healthcare ecosystem today unveiled the sixth edition of India Fit Report. India Fit Report 2020 is a result of a year-long study of 5 million GOQii users – presents a holistic overview on the health and lifestyle of Indians across different parameters such as steps taken, lifestyle diseases (Diabetes, Cardiac and Hypertension), BMI (Body Mass Index), nutrition, water, stress, sleep, gut health and immunity, allergies, smoking and alcohol consumption; all of which are classified according to gender and key cities. This year India Fit report has gone a step further and decoded the secret to ‘India’s Ikigai-longevity of life’ from 90 years old and above across the country.

Most of the centennials lead a disease-free life while the younger age groups demonstrated a higher risk profile for lifestyle diseases, the study indicates. As per the high-risk assessment framework of the study, 62 per cent of people are either high risk or borderline on the High-Risk Assessment spectrum. Only 38 per cent of people are healthy. On the whole, women are unhealthier than men with 71 per cent of women falling in the unhealthy category in the Health Risk Assessment spectrum. Young adults in the 19-30 age group have the unhealthiest habits and demonstrate a high propensity to be afflicted by lifestyle diseases.

Speaking about the study, Vishal Gondal, Founder & CEO of GOQii said, ‘’The GOQii India Fit report is an important marker for India’s fitness. Our study indicates that people who report being happy and satisfied with their lives are more likely to enjoy a longer life span with good health and fewer long-term limiting health concerns. Bonding with family and friends appears to enhance health, and even increase longevity. At GOQii, our endeavor is to create awareness about preventive health while providing people a platform to improve their health and fitness and move a step ahead to increase India’s average lifespan to 80 years and above.’’                                            

The findings in the report are alarming with the year on year rise in lifestyle diseases among youngsters. The report dives deep into health paraments giving a cue to young India to make changes in their lifestyle that will enable them to lead disease-free long and healthy lives. India has been labelled as the diabetes capital of the world being home to over 70 million people with Diabetes Mellitus. Diabetes has increased from 7.1 per cent to 12 per cent this year. The incidence of diabetes is highest among older adults at 23.81 per cent and seniors at 36.82 per cent. As per the report, 13.5 per cent of Indians have Cholesterol issues. High Cholesterol can even occur among people who are underweight, or overweight, thin or fat thus regular monitoring is key in keeping cholesterol in check. Currently, 36 per cent of the people who have high cholesterol have heart issues too while 51.7 per cent of the people who have diabetes have abnormal cholesterol too. This past year Thyroid issues have increased from 6.8 to 10.7 per cent. The report also suggests that 13.4 per cent of the people in India have high blood pressure.

The survey deep dives into city-wise parameters and has recorded Chandigarh to be the healthiest city in India while Kolkata is at the lowest end of the spectrum. 18 per cent of people in Kolkata are diabetic followed by Surat and Bhopal. In terms of allergies, Pune ranks lowest on the allergy index having the least amount of people suffering from allergies. Chennai has the worst BMI rank across all cities, while Mumbai slips far down in the list of healthiest cities, ranking 15th overall. Kolkata has the largest aging population in the country and the highest incidence of lifestyle diseases like diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure, and thyroid. About 60 per cent of people in Lucknow fall in the unhealthy bracket which is just 2 per cent below the country’s average. Ahmedabad ranks 10th in the overall ranking, manages stress better than many other cities. Bhopal has overtaken all other major cities, having the highest percentage of people who consume alcohol.

With a larger population reaching their older age it is important for Indians to take control of their lifestyle to get back to a healthy state. Managing stress, staying fit and eating nutritious food can change the statistics and bring down cholesterol, heart issues and other diseases. Women who take charge of their health can bring down the numbers in cases of PCOS, infertility and other women issues. Youngsters, on the other hand, must work towards controlled alcohol consumption and smoking.

The GOQii India Fit Report has been administered across 16 cities in the country and data has been collected from a cross-section of 5 million GOQii app users. The study evaluates the health of users basis the Health Risk Assessment (HRA) that recorded the data on a daily basis that is tracked by users on the App. HRA considers factors such as current body statistics, medical parameters, current nutrition, physical activity, stress, sleep, alcohol, smoking, current illness, lifestyle diseases, immunity levels, symptoms or health indicators. The data that is tracked by the users on a daily basis is their steps clocked, food logs, sleep, water intake, and their vital parameters. This edition of the report has focused on doing in-depth interviews with India’s oldest citizens. Over 100 respondents across the length and breadth of India, between 90 and 100 plus years of age were an integral part of the study.