Health
Young/prime adulthood can be considered the healthiest time of life and young adults are generally in good health, subject neither to disease nor the problems of senescence. Biological function and physical performance reach their peak from 20–35 years of age, waning after 35. Strength peaks around 25 years of age, plateaus through 35 - 40 years of age, and then declines. Flexibility also decreases with age throughout adulthood. However, there are large individual differences and a fit 40-year-old may out-compete a sedentary 20-year-old.
Women reach their peak fertility in their early 20's. Assuming unprotected intercourse with a man of the same age, women aged 19–26 have about a 50% chance of becoming pregnant during a given menstrual cycle, compared with 40% in the 27-34 age group and below 30% for women 35-39.
In developed countries, mortality rates for the 18-40 age group are typically very low. Men are more likely to die at this age than women, particularly in the 18-25 group: reasons include car accidents, and suicide. Mortality statistics among men and women level off during the late twenties and thirties, due in part to good health and less risk-taking behavior.
Regarding disease, cancer is much less common in young than in older adults. Exceptions are testicular cancer, cervical cancer, and Hodgkin's lymphoma. In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS has hit the early adult population particularly hard. According to a United Nations report, AIDS has significantly increased mortality of between ages 20 to 55 for African males and 20 to 45 for African females, reducing the life expectancy in South Africa by 18 years and in Botswana by 34 years.
Read more about this topic: Young Adult (psychology)
Famous quotes containing the word health:
“Give a man health and a course to steer; and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body; and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he is in as much danger of falling into them as one in a perfect state of health of having a fit of sickness.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The debt was the most sacred obligation incurred during the war. It was by no means the largest in amount. We do not haggle with those who lent us money. We should not with those who gave health and blood and life. If doors are opened to fraud, contrive to close them. But don’t deny the obligation, or scold at its performance.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)