klaus
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Oct 14, 2009, 12:05 PM
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Last week I had occasion to watch some commercials from the 1970s and was shocked to see footage that featured an ancient looking, frail, elderly man talk about being 57 years old. Beyond that I can’t remember what product or service the man was selling, as I was seriously stuck on just how old he looked for his age. So all this talk about 40 being the new 30 and 50 the new 40 and 60 the new 50 has some merit, as I’ve come to the conclusion that they just don’t make seniors the way they used to.
When I first started working in my current area of expertise some 25 years ago, seniors were definitely older. I recall seeing people aged 65 or 70 at some of my real estate projects that looked their age. Today I often see individuals that I assume to be in their 50s tell me they’re over 70. So it would appear that advances in health, fitness and nutrition are playing a large role in keeping individuals younger looking, if not actually younger.
But it would seem that one can’t completely ascribe the apparent youthfulness of today’s mature adults just to diet, exercise or improved healthcare. Is it possible that there is a component that goes beyond these obvious three factors? It could be something as simple as living in a world that’s relatively stable, both economically and politically and subsequent to that stability people are worrying less about the future.
This could be a wonderful area that budding gerontologists in today’s graduate schools could make a name for themselves in studying this phenomenon and determining the apparent causes. The implications are that the entire field of gerontology could see a tectonic shift in how we view and deal with aging. Also, given that this trend over the past twenty years has yielded a mature population that appears more youthful than its forebears, one is given to wonder if this trend will continue over the next twenty years and if so, will we be able to say that 80 is the new 60 and 70 the new 50?
It’s an interesting phenomenon and one worth studying, as there appears to be some relationship between how people age today and that fabled and much sought-after fountain of youth.
Klaus Rohrich is President and Creative Director of Taylor/Rohrich Associates Inc., a marketing and advertising firm that specializes in niche marketing retirement real estate developments
http://www.maturitymarketing.com.
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