Have You Heard? Baby Boomers Are "Aging!"

As we hear over and over in the news every day, the baby boomers are "AGING." Here's the Aging Baby Boomer Story Of The Day:

Orthopedic surgeons in New York report that they are seeing a growing number of baby boomers who suffer such severe knee pain and other discomforts that they can't even walk up stairs any more. (Related Aging Baby Boomer Story: the trend towards all-on-one-floor living.)

The arthritic finger points to one person: Jane Fonda! Whether you're a flower child who admired her anti-war protests during Vietnam or a patriot who condemned her for them, Jane has brought you all together in communal misery. She is to blame for your creaky joints and limited range of motion.

As the reasoning goes, those wildly popular aerobics videos she made in the '80s caused people to plunge into high-impact exercise, pounding their joints on three-tiered steps. (Of course, today, we know better; we pound our joints on treadmills.) Some of today's sore, arthritic baby boomers have blamed Jane for their pain, although I'm thinking it might just be related to a lack of circulation caused by too-tight leg warmers.

I wonder if their knees hurt more when it rains. Of course, even if the weather is a factor, sufferers will still insist that the pain in rain is mainly caused by Jane.

Jane herself might tell you that those videos were too extreme. She has said that at the time she made them, she was suffering from an eating disorder; it appears she had what we might call an "exercise addiction" as well. Over the years, she's softened her look considerably.

Of course, Jane can say from personal experience that it's easier on the knees to just sit on the turret of a communist anti-aircraft gun, yet even that can cause strain in the lower back.

********************

This story appears just as more studies tell us that people of all ages are getting fatter and fatter and will eventually pop after finally eating one too many chicken wings. Mississippi - ironically, the home of the most beauty pageant winners - is the fattest state of all. Hardly anyone seems capable of pushing away from the table any more, let alone exercising. What on earth happened to change "Let's Get Physical" to "Let's Get Liposuction"? When did "lean and mean" become "gross and adipose"?

It seems that this problem will only get worse until people can't get through their front doors to go get more food. Of course, there's always delivery. But when even the Dominos drivers are no longer able to fit into their cars, obesity will be halted in its tracks.

By the way, the State Fair Of Texas opens in a few weeks - I happen to live in Dallas, home of the fair - and the news is full of all the deep fried fattiness that's going to be served up. Here are this year's Seven Deadly Sins: fried Frito pie, fried guacamole, fried peach cobbler on a stick, fried sweet potato pie, fried banana pudding, fried cookie dough, and the most talked about, the deep fried latte. This is a fried pastry topped with cappuccino ice cream, caramel sauce, whipped cream and instant coffee powder.

Of course, the deep fried latte is at its best when served with a donut.

To my relief, my husband has said he won't be eating this overpriced glob of sugar, fat and fried gunk at the fair. But only because he doesn't like coffee.

Great news for everyone who eats it: the oil it's fried in is TRANS-FAT FREE!

Coincidentally, today's "Oprah" featured her favorite physician, Dr. Oz, talking about how to eat healthy. He first looked at portion control, comparing today's typical serving sizes with those from 20 years ago. No wonder our clothes are straining at the seams! We're used to seeing supersized food, and if, as our moms used to say, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, we solve that problem by gradually stretching our stomachs.

Dr. Oz then looked at the bad ingredients in processed foods: sugar, trans-fats (hydrogenated oils), high fructose corn syrup, enriched products (this means they've been refined), and saturated fats "from four-legged animals." He cleaned out one woman's fridge and pantry, taught her how to read a nutrition label and put her on a "diet makeover" that dramatically changed her appearance, health and outlook. Dr. Oz's regimen was similar to Dr. Perricone's; he had this woman throwing out her "fake," sugary, artery-clogging processed foods and eating salmon, olive oil and fresh vegetables instead. After a few months on this program, she seemed like a different - and much happier -- person.

(This might be a good time to mention that taking fish oil often works wonders on those joints ravaged by Jane Fonda's exercise routines.)

You may wonder why I'm spending so much time talking about weight; isn't this blog about age and looking young? Yes, but when I say that "age is the last big culturally-acceptable bias," I'm talking about the age one is and the age one looks. We associate a slim, healthy body with youth. With few exceptions, a woman who carries extra weight is judged to be considerably older than she would if she were slender and fit. She's dubbed "matronly" and placed in the same category with women who have wrinkles or gray hair. (Of course, it's also possible to go too far the other way; the starving, sinewy, anorexic look - think Victoria Beckham - is unhealthy, unflattering and extremely aging.) Yes, the overall issue here is age and ageism, but I consider age, beauty and weight to be just different sides of the same three-sided coin.

********************

Well, enough on that weighty subject. Here's still more on "aging rockers."

According to the Reuters news service, German music fans are being subjected this year to a deluge of older acts from America: Aerosmith, Genesis, The Stones, The Who, Black Sabbath, Lou Reed, Meat Loaf, the Police, and more. Critics admit that some are still making good music but say that others should give it up and retire. They say Peter Gabriel needed a TelePrompter to remember the words to his own songs, and one critic complains that Ozzy Osbourne kept screaming, "I can't (bleeping) hear you!" over and over. He writes, "You felt like shouting back, 'Buy a (bleep) hearing aid, and maybe you'll realize you're singing everything off-key!"

Of course, younger singers don't sing off-key; the tracks they lip-synch to are always perfectly in tune. And you know, that critic wasn't being fair; Ozzy couldn't hear the audience not because his ears are shot but because there wasn't one.

Fans were especially upset that Steven Tyler of Aerosmith had lost his boyish good looks.