Ageing with attitude: Watch these millennials have their ideas of what ‘old’ is challenged
IT’S a simple four-minute video that puts a hugely effective message across: What millennials think ‘old’ is, and how their minds get quickly changed.
The young people, aged 19 to 36, are individually asked at what age they perceive people to be ‘old’ and are invited to show how they think that person crosses the street, sends a text message, does a push-up, and does jumping jacks.
Then they are individually partnered up with an older person, ranging in age from 55 to 75, with both given two minutes to show a physical move that they can each teach the other.
The older participants patiently copy the simple moves that they are shown, but when it comes to their own turn, their younger partners are well challenged to keep up.
Dee, aged 55, for instance, does some tricky balancing on a wooden block, which her 35-year-old partner cannot manage.
He had earlier declared that he thought someone in their 50s was old, and when she hears this, she responds in gaping-mouthed horror, saying ‘wait a minute!’, before giving him a fun air punch in the cheek.
The YouTube video, made by the AARP, the US-based lobby group for seniors, also features each of the older participants making a statement about their personal view of ageing, with George, 75, declaring: “When people start stopping, that’s when they start getting old.”
The perspective we take on growing older — as George illustrates — is very much up to ourselves; regardless of what others think, we can play our own individual part in changing society’s ageist views.
More importantly, however, is how it affects our individual lives. If we hold an ageist view of ourselves as the years clock up, we are more likely to shorten our lives, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which underlined this message last Saturday, International Day of Older Persons, with the theme Take A Stand Against Ageism.
Research quoted by WHO reveals that older people who have negative attitudes towards ageing, live 7.5 years shorter than those with positive attitudes, and have poorer recovery from disability and disease. Older people who feel they are a burden may also perceive their lives to be less valuable, putting them at risk of depression and social isolation.
In the AARP video, a vital 68-year-old Daphne declares: “At my age, I feel like I did in my 20s.” And although the short film doesn’t allow time for her to elaborate, the fact that she doesn’t, as such, “feel her age” is telling in itself.
The argument against categorising people as ‘old’ by their chronological age crops up more frequently.
Two researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna are offering alternative ways for measuring the ageing population, other than by how many years someone has lived on the planet.
The IIASA is a scientific research institute, which conducts policy-oriented research into problems of a global nature that are too large or too complex to be solved by a single country, or academic discipline.
As people now live for far longer, the population experts at the IIASA, Sergei Scherbov and Warren Sanderson, argue that traditional measures of age which simply categorise us as ‘old’ at a specific age — often 65 — are outdated, overlooking that many people can have characteristics of much younger people at that stage of their life.
“What we think of as old has changed over time, and it will need to continue changing in the future as people live longer healthier lives,” says Scherbov. “Someone who is 60 years old today, I would argue, is middle aged, whereas 200 years ago, a 60-year-old would be a very old person.”
A demographic revolution is underway throughout the world. Today, there are around 600m persons aged 60 years and over, worldwide. This number will double by 2025 and will reach 2bn by 2050, with the vast majority of older persons in the developing world.
The researchers are providing a new toolbox of methodologies for demographers to better understand the impacts of an ageing population on society, by suggesting that chronological age alone, is too simple and outmoded a guideline.
They argue that a framework for measuring ageing should be based instead, on characteristics of people that change with age — including life expectancy, health and cognitive function, among others.
“Your true age is not just the number of years you have lived,” says Scherbov. “It also includes characteristics such as health, cognitive function, and disability rates.”
One new standard of measurement they suggest is called prospective age: “We measure age not as years since birth, but as distance from expected death.”
That means that as life expectancies increase, people become younger under this perspective, at the same chronological age. This method sets the threshold for ‘old’ at 15 years to projected life expectancy.
So, as increasingly more of us are living into our 80s and beyond, 60 may be the new 40 after all.
How much thought have you given to the ageing process? This book which was published three years ago offers that opportunity, even if the conversation is one-sided.
When the author was hitting 50, the prospect of the big birthday set her thinking about how to grow older well.
So she interviewed 20 inspiring women over 60 who were happy to have reached that stage and took the positivity of their interactions to inspire her.
Dale is a chartered psychologist and accredited coach so brings that life perspective to the book’s chapters reflecting on friendship, work, health, creativity, marriage, motherhood, money — and dealing with your appearance.
From those conversations she also reflects on her own life journey and offers the chance to the reader.
Brain shrinkage and memory loss is not inevitable as we grow older according to new US research, after so-called ‘superagers’ proved they could learn and retain new information as well as people up to 50 years younger.
Researchers of the Massachusetts General Hospital study enlisted 40 participants aged 60 to 80, 17 of whom performed as well as adults four to five decades younger on memory tests — while the rest had normal results — and compared their brains with 18 to 35 year olds.
Through MRI scans they discovered those who performed best on memory tests did not experience the normal age-related shrinkage linked to learning and retention areas of the brain. The research is outlined in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Post-menopause diet mistakes
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
