This doesn’t sound right to me. A few observations:

“A long-held myth regarding development is that as people age, they all become alike. This view is refuted by the third principle of adult development and aging, which asserts that as people age, they become more different from each other rather than more alike. With increasing age, older adults become a more diverse segment of the population in terms of their physical functioning, psychological performance, and conditions of living. […] Research continues to underscore the notion that individuals continue to become less alike with age. Such findings suggest that diversity becomes an increasingly prominent theme during the adult years, a point we will continue to focus on throughout this book.”

From Whitbourne & Whitbourne. Not bimodality, just greater variance. More:

“Over a 3-month period, even a moderate training program can augment muscle strength and maximal aerobic power by 20% or more, 25,26 — equivalent to a reversal of approximately 20 years of normal aging.26 […] The muscle force and aerobic power required to undertake many of the tasks important to the independence of an elderly person (for example, rising from a chair or climbing a flight of stairs) are almost directly proportional to an individual’s body mass. Thus, a 10% reduction in body mass will effectively increase muscle strength and maximal aerobic power by some 10%, equivalent to a 10-year reversal of the effects of aging. […] It has been suggested that declines in functional capacity with age reflect age-related reductions in physical activity. Inactivity has been estimated to account for 50% of the age-related loss in function.”

That is to say that to the extent that large differences exist, environmental factors – in particular physical activity – remain really important even in old age – i.e. it’s not just genetics. Quotes above are from Gender, Physical Activity, and Aging, by Shephard et al).

Also, on the same topic one meta-review on Alzheimer’s in the very old found that 40% of those aged 95 suffered from Alzheimer’s. It was noteworthy that risk didn’t increase past that point (i.e. in people older than 95), but when 2 out of 5 of the people you’re looking at suffer from dementia I’m not sure ‘pretty healthy’ is the best way to describe that population. The proportion of males having (prostate) cancer at that age is also, well, high…

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More seriously, if someone had asked the witch-hunters why the fat ones were more likely to be found to be witches, they’d say something about using witchcraft to unjustly provide themselves with more food, possibly by magically stealing it from the rest of the community.

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(Incidentally, googling “lizardman Obama Romney antichrist” was oddly enjoyable in its own right.)

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