We could prevent most of these scourges, or at least postpone them, by exercising, eating well and staying away from cigarettes. The trouble is that few of us–even within the ostensibly health-obsessed baby-boom generation–are doing much to protect ourselves. And 78 million boomers are now heading into their most disease-prone years. At current rates, the number of Americans with osteoporosis or low bone density will hit 41 million by 2015, up from 28 million today. Heart attacks, which struck 1.1 million Americans in 1999, will strike 1.5 million by 2025. Stroke incidence, now 400,000 a year, will top a million by 2050.
Can we turn things around? Health experts see little cause for optimism. “I regard the baby boomers as a generation at risk,” says Dr. Robert N. Butler, a professor of geriatrics at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “Only 10 percent of them are following a prescription for good health in terms of diet and fitness.” That may sound like hyperbole, but new statistics–culled from a national survey conducted last summer for NEWSWEEK and the Discovery Health Channel–support Butler’s assessment. Boomers, defined loosely as people age 35 to 54, may consume less fat and tobacco than folks did 40 years ago. But by many measures, they’re the least health-conscious sector of our society.
Consider the record on exercise. In the Discovery Health poll, boomers were as likely as older and younger adults to rate themselves “very” or “somewhat” active. But few engage in anything more strenuous than walking. Ask them about biking, running or swimming, and 15 percent or less will claim any involvement. The findings on diet are no more encouraging. Boomers reported eating more added fat and less fruit than their elders.
The consequences are written all over their bathroom scales. Rated by height and weight, 53 percent of the boomers in the Discovery poll (versus 44 percent of younger adults and 56 percent of older ones) are too heavy. And some 26 percent of male boomers are clinically obese.
How did it come to this? The problem lies not with the boomers themselves, experts agree, but with the world around them. “They get less physical activity [than earlier generations] because their jobs and their communities have changed,” says Dr. William Dietz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Walking, once a feature of daily life, is optional in car-based suburbs. We drive to work instead of walking to the bus stop–and work itself consists increasingly of sitting frozen at a computer terminal. At home, labor-saving gizmos enable us to cook, clean, cut grass and shovel snow without breaking a sweat. “When did self-cleaning ovens come in?” asks Dietz. “Did you know anybody as a kid whose dad had a tractor lawn mower?”
As modern life has reduced the need for calories, it has made them ever easier to come by. Boomers, by necessity, eat fewer meals at home than past generations; away-from-home meals and snacks captured 45 percent of the U.S. food dollar in 1997, up from 34 percent in 1970. Whether you’re raiding the office vending machine or dining out with clients, you’ll get more fat, salt and calories than you would at your own table. In one recent study, women who ate away from home more than five times a week averaged 16 percent more calories than those who ate out less often. The problem stems from portion sizes as well as ingredients. Nutritionist Elizabeth Ward of the American Dietetic Association figures that a 16-ounce Coffee Coolatta from Dunkin’ Donuts packs 410 calories if ordered with cream. For pennies extra you can upgrade to a 32-ounce bucket of the stuff. You haven’t had breakfast yet, Ward marvels, and you’ve consumed more than a third of the calories most people need in a day.
These trends can’t be repealed by fiat. Technology will make fast food faster, and domestic life easier, as long as people are pinched for time. Boomers can still choose the way they age, but slowing the process will mean forgoing some perks of prosperity, or taking conscious steps to counter them. Even modest dietary changes–drinking water when you’re thirsty instead of reaching for soda, snacking on apples instead of candy bars, ordering your Coolatta with milk instead of cream–can add up over time. So can modest increases in exercise. Butler, of Mount Sinai, encourages desk workers to wear an electronic pedometer for a few days, to assess their activity levels. Five miles, or 10,000 steps, is a good daily goal, he says, but people in sedentary jobs typically rack up only 3,000. So if, like most boomers, you consider walking a workout, try upping your mileage. It could make living to 80 a joy instead of a curse.
