In general, people are living longer now. Discuss the causes of this phenomenon. Use specific reasons and details to develop your essay.

Change is a powerful part of our existence. It is the base that helps us progress. One positive change that affects us all is that people are living longer now. Many factors led to this incredible fact.

The first is that our health care system constantly improves. Engineers study current technology and how it can better our health. Scientists research diseases and create medicines to cure them. Administrators work on ways to deliver better health care to people all over the world. For instance, in my history class, I learned that in early medicine, doctors didn’t clean their tools well. As a result, many patients wouldn’t survive even the smallest surgery because of infection. Soon after the surgery they would become fatally ill. Doctors then learned, through experience and research, that by cleaning their tools and using more sanitary methods, patients would survive long after their surgery. Now, people are living much longer than they would be able to before. This taught me that, we have improved health care to thank for our longer lives.

The second is that people take better care of themselves now than they did in the past. For instance, centuries ago people focused on survival. They had to ensure that they had the basics to survive: food, clothes, and shelter. Over time, our quality of life improved dramatically. People began to work and were able to attain the basics of life easily. They didn’t have to grow their own food, make their own clothes, or build their own shelters. They could buy these items easily in markets. In time, governments forced companies to reduce working hours and people began to enjoy more free time while having all of the basics for survival. With this free time, people focused much of that time and their energy on keeping themselves healthy. Nowadays, when people don’t work, they go to the gym, play sports, cook better, and overall take better care of themselves. Research shows that these changes in lifestyle have a dramatic effect on people’s lifespan.

In conclusion, many factors contribute to our longer lifespan, but few increased it as much as the improvements in our health care system and the increased focus that we have on our bodies. We should expect this to continue and I’m sure that we’ll soon find ourselves pushing our lifespan to lengths that we never imagined.