Have we stopped ageing?

Kittylester has hit it spot on.
Because we have had access to better food and labour saving devices, happily most of us in our 60's today, are lucky to be more able than previous generations were at our age.
But the expression used by the person in the media was obviously nonsense..... it would be like suggesting the 10 year olds of 2017 have not aged/grown/developed since their birth in 2007!!

Granny, couldn't have said it better than your post. I may look 10 years younger but I know my body is deteriorating. Young people can talk unadulterated rubbish at times but I love to think that one day they will look back and realise what prats they were.

I have age spots on my face and hands, greying hair and I appreciate a nap in the afternoon. However, otherwise I do not feel my sixty years. In fact I feel fitter than when I retired five years ago. When I compare myself with my mother I would say I am fitter at sixty than she was at forty and I put this down to a mixture of state of mind, level of fitness and health regime. She smoked, drank and gave up and while I have a moderate amount to drink sometimes I have a different mindset and have never touched cigarettes.

Grannyticktock, I agree with you totally. I suffer from exactly those things that you describe now that I am late sixties, and I certainly never had them ten years ago. I don't know how they draw these absurd conclusions! It's all just to save someone a packet of money, that's for sure!!

I'm definitely ageing physically but I like to think mentally I'm keeping up.

I sympathise, Kittylester.

Helped,out with my two year old gs birthday party yesterday, held in the local,park.

On the go all day, and today I am so tired, I feel quite ill.
At 72 years old today I wish I had more energy to cope with younger children. I love seeing him, but only for a short while. The terrible two's temper tantrums have started now as well. I might have coped better at 60 but now over 70, just can't do it. Have to remind my daughter about that.

My body felt feels as if it was 90 when I was 53 and now I'm 65 it must be well into the hundreds!

Totally agree with Anaya's viewpoint. I'm chasing 80 with horrendous speed but very fortunate to have reasonable health. Didn't retire until I was 74 and was inspired into better health practices (losing weight, exercising, eating more healthily) by the arrival of 1st GC at the ripe old age of 73. I had no death wish before but this young lady's appearance spurted my desire for longevity big time. Still able to run around, play chasey and kick a ball about at the moment. The mirror does not allow me any concessions in the age thing unfortunately but I feel so blessed. Go for it those of us who can. Nature is often less kind to many of us but there are also many of us who could improve our lot. It sure does take effort - don't I know it! - but decidedly worthwhile. Go for it ladies but, when you're tired, take a seat or have a kip. Retirement tends to allow that flexibility. Good luck to us all.

I felt about 25 till 15 years ago when had a serious fall which triggered a whole lot of issues. My arthritis is really painful and my get up and go has got up and gone. Gave up work to become carer for DH and DS, but now we all share the caring role for each other. After work for 16 years got my exercise doing a paper round which kept me fit and brought in a bit of pocket money but decided last year that it was a young person's job (no-one else took it on and no deliveries any more). Summer mornings were great, but winter with rain, ice and darkness were becoming miserable. Still don't feel my age, but things I can't do and get tired quite easily. But MIL (85) looks 20 years younger - still drives, still just starting to go greyer but complains that her hair is thinning. I do think that 70 is the "new 50", and most of my 80s friends are more like 60s. But to me this makes sense, since when I was a kid retirement age was seen as "elderly" with possibly 10-15 years ahead while now we're tending to live to 85-90+ as a reasonable life expentancy and a more youthful outlook, fit, active, demanding more out of life.

I agree with everyone's opinion. I am 65 and I worked till 62 but had to retire because od aching shoulder, backache. I look after my grandsons for one or two days...collecting from school and cook dinner. I feel OK but when I am back home I can feel achy, take a couple of days to recover. Eyes not as it were few years ago and the pain is more nowadays. I am a bit/piece of everyone......same feeling. X

Grannyticktock and Anya - I recently retired from teaching at 63, fit and healthy, and I promise you I could not have done a professional job for a lot longer. Simply put, I was losing the ability to multi-task.
If 25/30yr olds are burning out and leaving, why would this be an appropriate job for those 65+?

Modern life makes us 'fitter' in a sense that we have machines to wash and dry the laundry, hoovers are lightweight, cars have power steering and automatic gear changes, riser chairs and beds, showers, mobility scooters, all good for keeping us going at home...but physically I find I have very low stamina now and just get exhausted to the point where I am housebound.

I am so much better in my home environment, it is when I venture out that I find myself really challenged. Other people's furniture seems very low, few public toilets, high kerbs, crossing where the lights change quickly, hardly any benches for a sit down when out. The environment disables people but we don't seem to be addressing the issues at all.

I am 66. I work full time, I do between 8 thousand and 11 thousand steps a day at work and lift heavy boxes. I am up and down a flight of steps several times a day. Oh and I have just bought a narrow boat and live on it. I will be taking her out single handed. Oh and I have a date next week with a fellow boater... Life is good and I have no intention of slowing down

Whilst I think, generally speaking, views about ageing are changing and there has probably been an improvement in health-terms for those born into the NHS support-system, I don't doubt that some elements of ageing, including falling energy levels post 60, are likely to continue to cause difficulties in the 60+ generation.

I feel DH and I will be fortunate at 60 to have some options about part time before we qualify for state pension at 67 because of work related pensions, but many people of my generation will be wondering, in their mid 50s, how they can make it to 66 / 67 in full-time employment - especially when they work in physically demanding jobs.

It is simply not realistic to think that everyone will be able to sustain full-time work through their late 60s - into their 70s in future generations and I think that many will face economic hardship because of health matters in years to come.

I suspect that the 'actuarial expert' that the OP referred to is one of the government mouthpieces and part of a 'drip , drip, drip' method of trying to convince the nation that somehow we are all able to do more for longer...

Or is that just me being cynical?

I'm still teaching full time and coming up to my sixtieth birthday. Kids today are much tougher and much as I love the job I dread having to go on till 67 which is the new retirement age for people born in 1957. Also I think it's wrong for the pupils. Mine are teenagers and however hard I try to keep up it's practically impossible now, I can't think what it will be like in a couple of years. They need younger people to burnt out tired ones like me!!

I agree absolutely that we are, on the whole, fitter than previous generations. In my case, my parents, who took up hill walking late in life, were very fit, and my Mum was scuttling around on a bike all her life, although she died at 63 from a cancer that might well not have killed her today. Their mothers - my grannies - seemed very old and staid to me. Further back still, I have a photos of two of my great grandmothers; one looks like an elderly Queen Victoria, while the other is posed seated in the garden in long, black clothes, looking like an elderly matriarch, but in fact they were both only in their 50s when the photos were taken. (Mind you, they had each borne about a dozen children! That must take its toll.)

As some people are remembering, my OP was about the ludicrous claim that at 70 we are as fit as we ourselves were at 60, which is quite another matter.

I have just been out for a 45-minute walk; now I'm off to do some gardening, and later I am going for a swim. Just don't ask me to teach a class of tots or teenagers, or drive an ambulance!

I think it's amazing when people get so much older and are still able to do so many things. I'm 62 and really don't have the energy that I had even 10yrs ago. On the other hand my mother is 94, lives on her own, does all her own gardening, even climbing up ladders! She never seems to sit still and only gets about 4hrs sleep a night as she says she never feels tired.

I worked full time with Prisoners until I was 68. I only retired then as the in service pension rules changed and I would have lost out big time. I am now 71. My sister on the other hand has had poorly health for years and could never have worked full time even in her younger years. Everyone if different. These so called experts have a lot to answer for..... and where are all these jobs anyway?

I could not have put this better, Grannyticktock; in fact I wish I could have put it as well. As a Baby Boomer I am more grateful than I can say for the NHS, peace, a free Grammar school education, and more blessings than I can count ; we Gransnetters born in this country in the times that we were certainly won the lottery of life. We are fitter and healthier than our parents and grandparents, but as I approach seventy I am having to accept that I can't run, climb endless stairs, or work tirelessly all day, and a couple of days with the darling grand children leaves me feeling as if I have been run over by a garden roller, much as I love them and want to have their happy company. I cannot pretend that I can do the things I did at fifty, or even sixty; I'm just grateful for what I can do!

Deborahuns, I think teaching salaries are now paid at 65 - and that's if you started paying contributions after April 2007, otherwise, if before, then maybe a lump sum and payouts from 60 and there is the option of takig a lesser amount from 55 so you may have options to work part-time.

I am a teacher too and within this and other professions e.g. prison service, fire service, I think it is unrealistic to expect all these people to have the energy needed to meet the rigorous demands of the job at a later age.

DH worked in prison service and said it is a 'young man's game' - having to engage with and restrain much younger people on a regular basis. And then there is the 'beep' test (think that is what it is called) that will need to be passed to ensure sustained employment later in life for some.

I think 'ageing' is going to become a critical political issue in the light of delayed pension age as the years unfold. And I do think that younger car-bound , fast-food-fed generations who may have to navigate a privatised health system may have declining health earlier.

Perhaps in terms of improving generational health things have peaked now!

I think it's propaganda from our government convincing up we are all feeling great to keep up working until we die.

I think I am very, very lucky. I am in my very early 80's and feel better than I felt 10years ago. I walk for at least half an hour each day (or the dog gets cross!) and count myself incredibly fortunate as I broke my hip 7 years ago -tripped over my own feet! Shall walk as often and as long as possible, its better than all those expensive torture chambers which call themselves Gyms

In our family, we all have early onset arthritis along with a wealth of health problems due to a genetic condition. We might look younger than most at our age (there have to be plus sides) but by 60 we tend to be much more decrepit. Fortunately, I don't have to work until 67 because we have just enough income but the fact is, I am in my late 50's and I just wouldn't be able to work. Nor could my mother, who has literally been crippled with arthritis since her early 60's or my younger sisters who have been in wheelchairs for the last 5 years. This older workers policy just doesn't fit all.

I'm inclined to agree that its propaganda in order to make working until I'm 67 more bearable.

Kim spot on! You're an inspiration.

GrannyTickTock I could NEVER have taught Reception for all the money in the world. They are an alien breed. But I could still happily teach Y6 - my preferred year. I don't claim to have the eyesight of a 30 year old - whatever that is. But I can still see well enough without glasses as many who are still working full time.

I do take your point about expectations of the ageing work force, and there are certainly those who need to be pensioned off before their time. But pensions were never intended to see as through decades of leisurely living post retirement - especially the state pension.

We are living longer and the problem is having a financial impact on the economy and those who are having to stump up our pensions.

Somewhere in the middle is possibly the answer, as quite a few seem to be taking on part time work to supplement their income and to keep from vegetating keep interested and active. Indeed some of the most pleasant and helpful people encountered in retail are of pensionable age.