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Japanese Peak in Old Age

 

By Jonathan Watts, The Guardian

 

 June 16, 2003

 

Tokyo - To celebrate his 99th birthday Keizo Miura flew to the other side of the world and skied down a glacier in the French Alps. His son Yuichiro marked his 70th year by becoming the oldest man to climb Mount Everest.

As well as putting people a quarter of their age to shame, the extraordinary feats of these elderly athletes are proving a reassuring silver lining to the dark demographic cloud over Japan.

With the longest life expectancy in the world (84.9 years for women, 78.1 years for men) and one of the lowest birthrates (1.4 children), Japan is aging faster than any country on earth.

Government figures released last week showed that the number of people aged over 75 exceeded 10 million for the first time last year. Women are having so few babies that the total population is expected to start shrinking within the next three years.

Politicians, commentators and economists say that Japan faces a pensions, healthcare and labour crisis as the ratio of workers to retire falls from four to one today to two to one in 2025.

The fear that the population will grow more dependent and infirm as it grows older has contributed greatly to the gloom that has settled over the country in recent years.

But the Miura father-and-son combination has provided optimists with the counter-argument that the elderly have never been healthier or more energetic.

Yuichiro, the first man to ski down the highest peaks on every continent, returned to the top of Everest for the 50th anniversary of the first successful ascent.

More than 80 others reached the summit that day, May 23, but he was probably the only one of them old enough to remember the historic climb by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. He said his feat was intended to energise Japan's ageing society.

Keizo, who leads tours of elderly skiers around the world, spends 120 to 140 days a year on the slopes, but his birthday descent of the 12.5-mile Valle Blanche glacier on Mont Blanc drew huge domestic media attention.

"It was no problem", he said - but his son and grandson did help him at one point. "I want to ski for as long as I can."

His routine is well known in Japan. In the summer, when he cannot ski, he exercises for 20 minutes a day by walking or stretching.

A non-smoker and teetotaller, he attributes his vitality to a homemade concoction of raw eggs, green tea leaves, vinegar, yogurt, raw rice and other ingredients considered healthy in Japan.

Not surprisingly, the foul-tasting brew has yet to catch on, but many elderly Japanese are trying to emulate his active lifestyle, which gerontologists say is almost as important as diet in ensuring longevity.

The past few years have seen a boom in exercise classes for middle-aged and elderly people. On top of ballroom dancing, hiking and gateball (a Japanese version of croquet), some people find they have the energy to continue such demanding pursuits as rock-climbing and bodybuilding.

With so much energy available for hobbies and relatively little infirmity - on average a Japanese person is incapacitated for only 8.6 months between 65th birthday and death - the government wants to delay the retirement age beyond the current 65 as the best solution to the pensions problem.

Surveys suggest that two out of three elderly people are quite happy to keep working.


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