Yellow Kite to publish professor's guide to ageing well

Yellow Kite has acquired a book on "the art of healthy ageing", The Lazarus Strategy: How to Age Well and Wisely, by 84-year-old Dr Norman Lazarus.

Lauren Whelan, editorial director at Yellow Kite and Hodder Lifestyle, bought UK and British Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) from Euan Thorneycroft at A M Heath. The book will publish as a trade paperback and e-book on 14th May 2020.

In the book, Dr Lazarus—who is a professor at the Centre for Human & Applied Physiological Sciences at King’s College, London—explains how our lifestyle choices can determine how we will age through our golden years. Taking the three main factors crucial to keeping healthy (physical activity, food and the mind), the author looks at how each of these affect ageing and how those aged 50 and over especially need to make changes to these areas.

"The Lazarus Strategy is part how-to and part manifesto on the art of healthy ageing to guide readers along the path to a more active, productive, independent future and a medication-free life," said Yellow Kite, while also noting statistics from the World Health Organisation that by 2050 there will be two billion people over 60 with 434 million of those over 80 years of age.

Lazarus said: "We hold within ourselves the ability to ensure healthy living throughout our ageing years. The research of my colleagues and others shows that we must take control of the three main components of our lifestyle that determine the quality of our ageing years. The three are exercise, food and mental state. To achieve this requires changes in our behaviour. There will be challenges but the payoff is an independent, medicine-free, active life. Please accompany me as we explore ways of taking control of our behaviour as we age."

Whelan said: "Norman’s book is a wake-up call for society to address the factors that are essential to age in a healthy way and highlights the fact that ‘not ill does not equate to being healthy’. Norman is living, breathing experiment for the art of healthy ageing—combining his own experiences and learnings as a scientist and shows it is imperative for people of all ages to live an active lifestyle now in order to open the door for a better future."