Does the amount of energy you expend over time technically make you “older” because your atoms are moving more than someone who moves less?

Question

Someone at work brought this up and my head almost exploded because it sounds like total BS. They said if a sedentary mother gave birth to a baby who grew up to become an extreme athlete (ultra marathon runner/someone who just never stopped moving their whole life), technically the baby is “atomically” older because more energy has passed through them. Is this just malarkey?

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Answer 1

You get older because your cells reproduce over and over and start to lose talomeres and suffer DNA damage. Over time this makes the cells less and less perfect until they can no longer sustain their function.