Baby Boomers sicker and frailer than previous generations

Diet and lack of exercise.

I’m sure they were far more active than we are, there were a lot of manufacturing trades ‘back in the day’ physical work now replaced with office work.

In the home of course many hours spent trying to wring out the bedsheets so that they would dry before the end of the week!

Plenty of illnesses caused by allergies too, I only knew of 1 girl in my school with Hay Fever, now almost everyone I know carries an Inhaler.

Working my way through ‘Ultra Processed People’, a sobering read about diet and health.

Mum is almost 95, and always puts her longevity down to growing up in the 30's and 40's where there were no junk foods, no sweets or biscuits much during the War, and no supermarkets to tempt you to buy more than you need.

Also she said she walked everywhere rarely even took a bus.

These days you only have to walk to the door to receive a delivery of processed food high in fat, salt and sugar. Except for the chippy there were no fast food outlets when I was growing up and I can't remember seeing people eating in the street, unlike today. Children today are much more sedentary. I was outside playing for hours as a child with a jam sandwich and a bottle of water to keep me going until teatime when my Mum gave me a home cooked tea with meat, fish and lots of vegetables whereas ready meals are big business today. My grandchildren seem to exist on chicken nuggets, chips and pizza because it's quick when their parent get in from work. No surprise that they are brewing up health problems for themselves.

Lovemylife

Working my way through ‘Ultra Processed People’, a sobering read about diet and health.

Processed food is the one thing that’s going to alter the life expectancy of future generations.
I believe an awful lot of problems/ issues that we are dealing with now is down to processed food.
It’s not as simple as avoiding turkey twizzlers, it goes far deeper in everything we buy and eat.

I agree with you NannyJan - my Dad is 90 and still chops his own logs, grows vegetables, walks to the pub, cooks all his own food from scratch and his weekly whole meal loaf comes from local bakery.

He’s never smoked or been overweight and has gotten over a cancer scare and a few falls in the last few years.

I watched Paddy McGuiness/Chris Harris programme on longevity on the Greek island Ikaria where the secret appeared to be keep doing what you’ve always done, or you won’t be able to do what you’ve always done!

Processed food includes things like yogurt and bread.

It’s the ultra-processed stuff that’s the problem, full of things our bodies wouldn’t recognise as food. It’s frightening.

To be honest, MOnica, some of that sounds like bollocks to me.

How does it reconcile the claim that the prewar generations were 'fitter and healthier' than post war generations with the fact that prewar life expectancy was far shorter and infant mortality rates were higher? In other words, only the 'fittest' actually survived, whereas the postwar inception of the nhs, the improvements in medicine and access to medicine, and, access to greater amounts of cheap food has (or 'had', until the inception of 'austerity') improved life expectancy and infant mortality rates.

I'm particularly unhappy about the 'burden on the health service' statement. was that yours or the researchers'? Keeping more people alive inevitably means that the 'less fit' will be a higher percentage of the population and so skew numbers, but what do we do about that?

Having said all that I think that the usual suspects are to blame for the apparent decline in fitness and health. No doubt already cited by other posters...

Lack of exercise is a big factor too, if I catch the bus home from town there are often schoolchildren waiting and I am amazed when they get off the bus after just two stops.

And the jam sandwich was most likely made on proper bread with home made jam!
Interesting! Most baby boomers would have been born into restrictions caused by food shortages and poverty. However so were previous generations. Food that was more affordable when baby boomers were young was seasonal veg from the garden or local allotments..
For later generations the cheapest and most available food is processed food such as white bread and marg.
So if baby boomers are iller due to diet alone ( and there are most likely many factors) diet as an adult is significant. Perhaps modern medicine helps us to survive longer with chronic illness or poor health now?

I am a mid 50’s baby, my peer group are normally found at the gym at least three times a week, walk, garden, look after GC, some are still working (nurses, teachers, charities etc)

We are all slim, fit and extremely active, cook from scratch, several vegetarians.

With the advance in medicines and diagnostics since WWII not sure I believe this report

I agree with MaizieD. My grandparents died in their fifties and sixties. Sometimes a hard life had a detrimental impact.

NannyJan53

Mum is almost 95, and always puts her longevity down to growing up in the 30's and 40's where there were no junk foods, no sweets or biscuits much during the War, and no supermarkets to tempt you to buy more than you need.

Also she said she walked everywhere rarely even took a bus.

IMO your mum is spot on.

Should have added, but IMO genes do play a part, too. My mother always said she came from ‘good stock’ - her own mother was one of ten, 9 of whom lived into their 80s, the other died in mid 60s.

My mother went on to 97, but her extremely robust constitution was a mixed blessing - for around her last 15 years she had dementia, so her existence for at least the final 5 was pitiful. TBH a swifter end would have been much more merciful.

Both my grandmothers died in their 60s. Mil in her mid 60s parents in mid 70s. They all would have had a war time diet and walked everywhere. One grandmother worked outside the home all her life, the other worked in the home bringing up 5 children. Both my parents worked all their lives amd ate well balanced meals.

I think its luck of the draw. But I do feel sorry for young parents now. The pressures on them are relentless. And also children now. I was only thinking this morning of how much I loved school at 12 at this time of the year. A new uniform. Walked to school for 30 minutes and back at 4 along the sea front. A good freshly cooked school dinner. We had a good cook and catering team. No bullying. No mobile phones and subsequent bullying. The teachers were respected by children and parents without question. Available dentists. School medical checks. I was lucky

Yes, we certainly are fatter. I've heard it said often that the rationing of WW2 paid off for the wartime generation and actually made them healthier.

I think rationing only fully stopped about 1954(?) and I imagine that's when the nation's health started on the downward slide.

I think it’s a bit too easy to generalise like this, though.

Certainly there is a lot of obesity now, and in part this could be due to lifestyle as most people are much more sedentary than once was the case and ready foods are not always as wholesome as they should be.

However, pre WW2, there were a lot of deaths by illnesses for which there are either cures or better control of now (eg meningitis, polio, TB, etc, etc). Rickets was common place amongst poorer families due to poor nutrition.

So, with every generation, there have been and will be health issues that needed/will need addressing. It’s too simplistic, I feel, to suggest that all of one group is/was unhealthier/healthier than another.

Ziplok

I think it’s a bit too easy to generalise like this, though.

Certainly there is a lot of obesity now, and in part this could be due to lifestyle as most people are much more sedentary than once was the case and ready foods are not always as wholesome as they should be.

However, pre WW2, there were a lot of deaths by illnesses for which there are either cures or better control of now (eg meningitis, polio, TB, etc, etc). Rickets was common place amongst poorer families due to poor nutrition.

So, with every generation, there have been and will be health issues that needed/will need addressing. It’s too simplistic, I feel, to suggest that all of one group is/was unhealthier/healthier than another.

Well I think it's Swings and Roundabouts - each generation seems to have pluses and minuses that the preceding generation didn't recognise.

I do believe it. If I look at my year group in school as opposed to friends now, several people have unfortunately died already. Many others are obese, some have chronic health problems of one kind or another, and others aren’t physically active. We mix with people who are quite similar to ourselves in outlook generally I think, which gives us a distorted picture of the whole.

GrannyGravy13

I am a mid 50’s baby, my peer group are normally found at the gym at least three times a week, walk, garden, look after GC, some are still working (nurses, teachers, charities etc)

We are all slim, fit and extremely active, cook from scratch, several vegetarians.

With the advance in medicines and diagnostics since WWII not sure I believe this report

We'd need to see the over all statistics for 1950s babies to know whether your peer group (and mine, come to that, I don't know any obese people) is typical or an outlier.

Well it isn’t all the younger generation by any means

I don’t recognise the description in my own family
ALL my seven grown up grandkids are into running, football, boxing, gyms and exercise so what does it depend on? I never did anything in the way of formal exercise (apart from working, looking after children etc etc ) but I am fairly fit can still walk at a reasonable speed, swim, garden and touch my toes with straight knees (almost 80 ) My Dad even in his last weeks (92) was doing his morning exercises albeit while lying on the bed as opposed to standing up.
Is it upbringing? is it genes ? I think it’s much more about genes with upbringing second and modern lifestyle third
My grandkids do have takeaways sometimes but they all seem to like cooking too and although I m a dreadful cook half of them seem very good cooks with quite sophisticated tastes one of my grandsons is an excellent cook and my second eldest Grandaughter who hates cooking has ‘chosen’ a boyfriend who loves cooking from scratch 🤣🤣🤣
Like maizieD I m very unsure about this piece of information

The sheer physical effort of doing everything from the moment one awoke ‘till bedtime was greater than now in (UK) and I suppose that has lead to a weaker, less resilient and over fed population who are living longer thanks to healthcare, people generally are more anxious about just about everything too, well they seem to be willing to say so now more than when I was growing up. Perhaps it is infectious. Just a thought.

IMO anyone’s who’s visited the US since at least the 70s will have seen how junk food available just about everywhere, and very often massive portions, can’t have failed to notice the link with extreme obesity.

On the first morning we very first visited, early 70s, we went to a 24 hour breakfast place. A very fat boy at a nearby table was tucking into an enormous plateful of everything ‘breakfast’ you could think of - including a huge pile of pancakes with a lump of butter the size of a tennis ball on top.

At the time, you rarely saw extremely fat people in the U.K. Can’t say the same now, alas.