Iceland is Beckoning, Boomers.
I predict here and now that Baby Boomers, especially Americans, will in accelerating numbers travel to and through this mystifying land of fire and ice.
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Dr. Mark Crooks, A 57-Year Cancer Survivor, A Life Dedicated to Showing Baby Boomers How to Age Well
I have completed writing a biographical novel inspired by Dr. Mark Crooks, my long-time friend and fitness mentor, entitled: WARRIOR: The Life and Lessons of a Man Who Beat Cancer for 57 Years. Here’s a pre-publication book trailer: Mark Crooks, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist, sports psychologist, fitness pioneer and daredevil risked everything to survive five bouts of cancer spanning 57 years. This is the second of a two-part post, the first of which you can read by clicking here. The…
Continue ReadingTwo Major Boomer Wellness Goals: End of Sarcopenia, Compression of Morbidity
The aged man struggled to get out of his recliner. His leg muscles could not lift his weight into a vertical position, so he fell back into the chair, exhausted. He sat there for a few minutes, trying to command his weak muscles to help him stand. He barely had strength to push upwards with his hands against armrests. Finally in a single determined push with arms and forward momentum from rocking, he stood, though unsteadily. It took a few…
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Defining(almost) Moment of A Generation
Over the weekend Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space and parachuted to the ground, breaking records and the sound barrier along the way. A really cool video can be found here.
What I think is the most interesting point here, besides the fact that a man broke the speed of sound with his face, is that we are seeing a space boom like that of the 1960’s.
Continue ReadingIs "American Idol" an example of institutionalized ageism?
Popular culture favors youth. Celebrity favors youth. Many of today’s icons of the Boomer generation achieved fame before turning 25, certainly by 35. But unlike older generations, where many youth icons faded from superstardom after age 45, Boomer icons persist today, filling stadiums (Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Gene Simmons, and Bonnie Rait) and winning starring roles in movies (Richard Gere, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, and Sigourney Weaver, to name a few). The Boomer generation’s cultural hegemony is maintaining and even…
Continue ReadingBaby Boomers: The Entitled Generation, by Bill Keller, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist
Bill Keller, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, painstakingly summed up his baby boom birth cohort as “The Entitled Generation.” This snippy criticism is typical of jeremiads written by and for Boomers to portray unseemly conclusions about the nation’s largest generation. So writes the columnist from on high, “We are an entitled bunch.” Keller’s views fall way short of balance. For example, while warning of and alleging future entitlement fund shortfalls to be imposed by the generation, he…
Continue ReadingConclusion: The Boomer Generation Is Changing Aging
Ten years after beginning a serious inquiry into understanding the sociological and cultural collision between the Boomer generation and marketing, business, and aging, I have come away with some overarching observations and conclusions. Aging is a nonnegotiable part of the human condition, a biological imperative that binds, beckons, and bothers. Aging begets elderhood. These are facts, immutable, independent of generational context. What remains malleable is flexibility of meaning: social, cultural, and institutional narratives about human aging continue to evolve. A…
Continue ReadingGender and Generational Hallmarks Influencing Boomer Men
Middle age, edging toward old age, presents many unique challenges for men, and these momentous changes—biological, social and cultural—become greatly magnified when around 5,500 men cross the threshold of 50 every day. For nineteen years, beginning in 1996 and until 2015, roughly two million men can be expected to traverse annually the journey across the age 50 horizon. Being 50-something and beyond can be viewed, in a sense, as an enormous population of men experiencing the same life stage at…
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