Health & Fitness
Steve Rose: 72-Year-Olds are Just Getting Started
Think you're getting old? Forget it. There's still havoc to reek! 72 is the next 30! Let's get started.
A recent MSN article cited a study by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany that says humans have gotten so good of lowering the odds of dying that our average life expectancy has risen faster in the past 100 years than in the previous 200,000 years.
The study looked at Japanese and Swedish men and concluded that these modern humans had the same odds of dying at 72 that early hunter-gatherers had at 30.
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I found that to be interesting but I began to think about two significant facts: I don't live in either Japan or Sweden and if I lived to be 100 years old, how the hell do I pay for it? This might be the greatest revenge for parents who had children who drove them nuts. Payback.
Dinner table one evening: " Dad, how do you want to spend the day today. It's your 99th birthday."
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"Well son, I thought we'd bike about thirty miles and then swim ten or so and then run another ten or fifteen."
"Dad, that's called a triathlon."
"Whatever, you coming?"
"No, I thought we'd like have dinner somewhere at 4:30, you know, the early crowd."
"No problem. I should be done by 3 pm."
"Bike thirty miles, swim, ten and run another fifteen and you'll be done at 3?"
"Okay maybe 3:15."
"When are you going to die!!"
"Oh! uh oh, I'm having chest pains!"
"Really?"
"Psyche! No, just messin' with you!"
"Look, we need the room. You'll have to move out. I'm sorry. I never thought you'd live this long."
"You were adopted."
If you think about it, with modern medical technology such as knee and hip replacements, as well as other medical breakthroughs, living to an older age may be just fine with us. Why? One word:
Viagra--no, wait, uh, FUN! That's the word! (Viagra is just assumed at this point.)
In fact America, we may create a whole new generation of delinquency.
Some of the things we can look forward to are:
Food fights at the at Golden Corral.
Graffiti in the hallway at the senior community recreation building.
AARP supplement insurance for sky diving.
Increase in calls to the doctor because "that thing" as your wife calls it, is still active after four hours.
Prank calls to your kids.
An "early bird special" at the tattoo shop.
Ah, the fun that lies ahead..