“There is good evidence that younger adults who have more positive attitudes toward ageing become healthier older adults.”
What and who is old? Don’t you love this question? I find it endlessly fascinating that no matter where you are and who you talk to, when it comes to discussions and perceptions about being ‘old’, the great majority of us don’t include ourselves. Old is always ‘the other’.
Writing recently in her wonderful blog, Coming of Age, journalist Adele Horin commented that it was a given that an ‘old person’ is always 15 years older than yourself. I’ve heard that before too but, at age 51, it doesn’t work for me. I don’t think of 66 as being terribly old at all.
I’m not entirely sure it will even work for me when I am 66. I know 81 year olds who don’t seem so ‘old’ but I suppose you have to draw a line somewhere. Or do you?
Perhaps what matters is not “how old is old” but rather how we feel about being ‘old’ (or any other arbitrarily defined age or stage – including middle-aged or young) and then what we do about it.
A case of perceptions
There have been quite a lot of studies about perceptions of ageing and also how these perceptions influence the way we age. There is good evidence that younger adults who have more positive attitudes toward ageing become healthier older adults, even when studies control the findings for the usual risk factors for poor health.
The authors of one US survey of age perceptions by the Pew Research Center, said their findings confirmed the old saying that you’re never too old to feel young. In fact, it showed that the older people get, the younger they feel – relatively speaking.
Among 18 to 29 year-olds, about half said they feel their age, while about quarter said they feel older than their age. Another quarter said they feel younger.
By contrast, among adults aged 65 and older, a clear majority – 60 per cent – said they feel younger than their age, compared with 32 per cent saying they feel exactly their age and only 3 per cent saying they feel older than their age! Not bad!
Looking more closely at the findings, most adults over the age of 50 said they feel at least 10 years younger than their actual age. One-third of those aged between 65 and 74 said they felt 10 to 19 years younger, while one-sixth of people 75 and older said they felt 20 years younger.
The beginning of old
On average, respondents across all ages in that survey said old age begins at 68. But few people over 65 agreed; they said old age begins at 75. Of course, those respondents under 30 said 60 was the beginning of old age!
Reading and writing about ageing over the last 15 years, I’ve learned that, for most people, ‘ageing’, particularly ageing anywhere beyond say, 65, is at best an abstract concept. While most people have some understanding of ageing issues, some personal family experiences, some observations – usually negative – about ‘being old’; they don’t often relate any of these concepts to themselves.
I don’t think it is helpful at all. If we refuse to acknowledge the inevitability of growing old (including the alternative to it) and what it may entail, then we lose our big chance to do it well. To think about it, plan for it, to have some chance of controlling the decisions we will want – or might need – to make.
It’s a great thing to ignore the numbers when it comes to outdated and erroneous assumptions and negative stereotypes. I think it is the duty of us all, as we grow older, to continue to rock the boat from that perspective. But that doesn’t mean being in denial about the inevitability of ageing and eventual death.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when it comes to growing old, it seems to me that we’re all doing it so we’d best get on with acknowledging it, owning it in a meaningful and unapologetic way and really making the most of it.
As the guru advocate of ageing, former Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Alexandre Kalache, says ,“there’s only one alternative to ageing but there are many alternatives to ageing well.”
