Why do distance runners typically look older than non runners their age?

They eat very high carb diets, lots of sugar, and lots of sun. Makes you look old.

There isn't just one metric of health.

Running undoubtedly protects against some cardiovascular, weight, and cancer related issues.

Running in the sun undoubtedly damages your skin, which is very important for looking young, but looking young and being healthy aren't directly correlated (there is some correlation though).

Finally, running causes you to burn lots of calories (and eat lots of calories) and increases cell turnover. These new cells lose a little bit of telomere length each time, aging you. It's one reason why studies support fasting as an anti-aging measure. Less calories, less cell turnover.

As for the hair? I can't answer that. Running increases cortisol levels which in theory lead to a decrease in testosterone levels. This should be protective for your hair as DHT (testosterone that is converted by 5a reductase) is the primary cause of hair loss. Perhaps cortisol also has a damaging effect on follicles, or maybe it's another facet of sun damage, or, counterintuitively, running could increase DHT levels despite lowering testosterone.

Also the pounding and gravity taking toll on your face. Who cares. It's worth it.

I give the runner's nod to skinny old guys walking through the woods. I can tell they were or are runners and think they look better than other old people. Not younger, just better.

Members of my high school team use sunscreen during the summer since we are outside so much. Never would have expected that from a bunch of 16yr olds.

Low body fat makes the face have more lines and look older. The bones show more. Add in the effects of years of exposure to a lot of sun, and you get rougher skin with less fat to even out the wrinkles.

As my mom was getting older, she liked to joke that she sacrificed the butt to save her face when she ate desserts.

This is definitely a big part of it. It's hard to be wrinkly when you have tons of subcutaneous fat.

High carbs=inflammation plus plant-derived toxins. Just like smokers exposed to oxidized plant toxins. Same with seed oils (omega 6 especially), with the kicker that they integrate and embed in all the tissues to speed up aging and undermine cellullar integrity. Subject such tissues to sun exposure and you have cross-linking and telomere damage. Also collagen is dependent on proper animal-based proteins, as is bone density and integrity. These are all structural components that affect lines, wrinkles, scarring, moles, age spots, etc..

The other front is hormones, which are undermined by diet low in animal fats, whole animal protein and animal-based bioavailable micronutrients, including antioxidants. Hypothyroid, anemia, cortisol stress, low sex hormones, all accompany plant-skewed diets, especially in conjunction with overtraining and lack of proper strength/resistance training.

In short, the poor diet and redundant stress that runners subject themselves to are all relevant to accelerating aging on many levels. The healthy elements of the activity dwindle after 15-20 miles/week, especially without a proper balance of resistance training and whole-animal foods such as beef, eggs, fish, butter, cheese and raw dairy.

I'm 65 and the older runners I run with I think look younger than the non-athletic seniors that I know. But I will agree with other posters that time in the sun can impact your looks. I don't wear sunscreen but I usually wear a baseball cap and a beard. When I shave the beard everyone says I look so much younger and are surprised to learn I'm in my 60's.

BTW. I'm the 3rd of 6 siblings, all of whom were born within 7 years (from oldest to youngest). When showing co-workers a photo of the six of us, the most common comment was that the second oldest looked the youngest followed by me and the youngest sibling looked the oldest.

I think inactivity, smoking, overeating makes people look much older.

time dilation from moving fast. Truck drivers have it worse, most 40 year olds look about 80

It's easy to forget about the distance runners who look young for their age e.g. Paula Radcliffe and Scott Jurek are 50 this year and Mo Farah will be 40; they all look great for their age. Perhaps there's a genetic element but also perhaps the average hobby jogger spends more time running in steady effort/higher heart rate sort of runs and causing more oxidative damage.

Some tend to look older because of very low body fat and lots of sun exposure. But it depends on the type and the timeframe. E.g. professional female runners might look older in their late 20s or early 30s because more wrinkles, but then look younger compared with their peers 10 or 15 years later because they are so much fitter. Similarly with men but I had not noticed it that much. Male pattern baldness is genetic and AFAIK not affected by aerobic excercise.

I agree with your overall views on diet, but the idea that runners in general have poorer diets than Joe Public is false IMO.

Not to pick on him, but the picture of Ritz on the home page… Dude is fit, but he looks closer to 50 than 40.

Don’t want to make this too racial & stereotypical but if you are talking about white people, I think you all could do far better at skin routines.

put lotion on everyday

use wash cloths in the shower etc

I don't know what world you're living in but its definitely not one that encompasses the general population. Maybe if we're talking very fit people in the gym crowd runners tend to look older. But for the average person runners age way better. I know there are some runners who tend to look older than there age because of their thinness but this is definitely not true across the board.

I wonder if maybe there is just no association at all between running and looking young or old, but we think there is because we we expect there to be one (toward looking young) so failure to find that that leads us to believe the opposite is true.

Either that, or, I wonder if there are yet-undiscovered genetic factors associated with both success in running and with looking old. Look at Haile G. He could have passed for a masters athlete when he won the U20 championships. For all the rumors about him actually being older, surely he wasn’t actually in his forties in the mid 1990s, but he looked like it. Or Nick Willis. Look back at photos of his epic duels with Alistair Cragg in college - his hairline was receding quite a bit already. Actually, no, both of their hairlines were receding quite a bit already. Surely running didn’t cause that.

Also not wearing moisturizer during the cold weather months wreaks havoc on the skin. When you’re young you don’t think you need it-you think you’re immortal-but as you ripen you see the value. Many runners I know in their sixties and seventies, provided they hit the gym, look ten to fifteen years younger- from the neck down.