Baby Boomers Rage Against Age

By Peter Munro, The Age

June 7, 2009

Australia

On that ancient battlefield of The Iliad, old King Priam of Troy pulls at his grey hair and bemoans the coming death of his young son. "It looks well enough for a young man killed in battle to lie there with his wounds upon him: death can find nothing to expose in him that is not beautiful," he wails. "But when an old man is killed and dogs defile his grey head, his grey beard, his privy parts, we plumb the depths of human degradation."

He mourns for his son Hector. But mourns, too, for himself — grey, wrinkled and soon to be alone in "miserable" old age. History, he knows, records the great deeds of young men.

In Homer's epic poem, old age was damned obscurity. Today, it is seen as liver spots and shrunken shoulders, shaking hands, thinning hair and senility. It is irrelevance and decline. It is stepping slowly onto a Connex train when it arrives at the platform late — but, like old age, inevitably.

And so we rage against age, more now than ever before. Australians spent an estimated $345 million in the past year — up 15 per cent — on "non-invasive" and "minimally invasive" cosmetic procedures to try to stave off the signs of ageing.

Botox injections to iron out wrinkled brows, dermal "fillers" to plump sunken lips, chemical peels to strip away sallow skin. Billions more are spent by women and, increasingly, men on "anti-ageing" or "age-defying" creams, vitamins and potions. A whole new vocabulary has been conjured up: "labial folds" for sagging skin; "crepiness" for wrinkles. No one, presumably, wants their face to resemble thin, crinkled paper; or a French pancake.

As the population ages — and baby boomers tip towards a traditional retiring age — efforts multiply to still the inexorable march of time. Grey hair is dyed or replaced strand by strand, slippers and knits are eschewed for more "youthful" fashions, gymnasiums host seniors-only sessions, men in their 70s inject human growth hormones into their guts.

Social researcher Neer Korn, from Heartbeat Trends, says there is something innate in human nature to rebel against old age. But lately it has become an obsession, propelled by ageing baby boomers. After a lifetime of enjoying so much scrutiny and fascination, this generation now see the spotlight turning to pretty, young(er) things, he says.

Everywhere they turn are the perfectly airbrushed and perpetually young — on billboards, magazine pages and in TV advertisements. Reinforcing the message are tales of celebrities in their 30s and 40s eating anti-ageing cookies, spending tens of thousands of dollars on health spas or, bizarrely, smothering themselves in leeches in a bid to look fresh and young.

Tracey, 39, and Craig, 38, from the Gold Coast subject themselves to "pulse light" treatment, teeth whitening, Botox and lip fillers on Channel Seven's 10 Years Younger in 10 Days because they want to feel new again. "I have aged over the past few years," says Craig, apologetically.

"Generations before, the baby boomers were quite happy to age gracefully. You went grey, had wrinkles, people stood up for you on the bus and you called yourself a pensioner — it was all part of the cycle of life," Korn says.

"Baby boomers are ageing disgracefully — fighting the ageing process as much as possible. So you don't go purple rinse set, you dye your hair, you change your appearance, you make yourself look as young as possible … If you go to older societies, old people were revered and respected — it was good to grow old. But now, age is a nuisance."

His studies have found that the children of the Great Depression and great wars, now aged in their 70s and 80s, largely take ageing in their stride. Boomers, though, are more likely to suffer what academics call "the mask of ageing". Think of it like seeing your wrinkles in the mirror and protesting: "But I just don't feel that old!"

Dr Mair Underwood, lecturer in the school of science at the University of Queensland, has studied body image in three groups aged 20-30, 45-55 and 70-plus. The youngest group were the least satisfied with their weight and appearance, while those in the middle were the most preoccupied with fighting ageing. They dyed their grey hairs or had cosmetic surgery, because "I still feel young on the inside and I need my body to match".

The oldest cohort were, to Underwood's surprise, the most satisfied, even if somewhat begrudgingly, with their looks. They were concerned less with appearance than health and function. Are they simply a more stoic generation, brought up in an age where ageing wasn't so damning? Or does our rage against age have a tipping point?

Underwood is not sure. "Maybe we reach a certain point where there is nothing much you can do about ageing so you give up fighting. Or maybe it's a generational thing — younger generations have grown up in a more body-conscious society and that's why they see their body as much more important; as a reflection of who they are."

She suspects allusions to a previous age when the elderly were revered and respected, like wise sages, are romanticised and exaggerated. But broader social trends have conspired to bolster disdain for the elderly. As infant mortality has decreased and life expectancy has surged, old age has become inextricably associated with death. When most people died before they were old, living beyond the middle ages was a sign of success. Now it is more closely associated with decline — of comfy slippers and nursing homes, of loneliness and looming demise.

Running alongside this is the trend towards thinking of the body as something we create rather than something we are given — a project primed for sprucing, a neglected shell crying out for a reality TV makeover. "There has been a shift in the last few decades towards thinking of these things as your responsibility, your choice. People are more and more thinking of their bodies as a reflection of who they are," Underwood says.

"Will we one day get to the age where if someone looks old they will be considered lazy and slothful? Will we look at them the same way we see overweight people — that you should have put the work in but you haven't?"
The Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery estimates Australians spend about $130 million a year on breast jobs and liposuction alone. There are few recent statistics for Australia. But in the United States in 2007, the college says, at least $US12.5 billion ($A15.5 billion) was spent on cosmetic procedures — an increase of 59 per cent since 2000. It is predicted that by 2015, more than 55 million cosmetic procedures — one for every five Americans — will be performed in the US (a fourfold increase from 2005).

The Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australasia says the global financial crisis has not dulled the local appetite for cosmetic treatments. But society president Dr Gabrielle Caswell draws a distinction between patients wanting to look "younger" and the majority who, she says, instead want to look "refreshed" — "like a better version of themselves, not necessarily a younger version".

It's a fine line, but one built on artifice. "An 18-year-old face on a 55-year-old body would look ridiculous," she says. Instead, a skilled cosmetic physician might iron out the deepest furrows in a patient's face but leave them with an appropriate spray of wrinkles to keep that "authentic" look.

The average age of Caswell's patients is 45. She is in her mid-40s and admits to having had Botox and dermal fillers. "When I was 20, 40 seemed so far away. Now I'm in my 40s and thinking 60 is just around the corner and I don't feel I'm ready to be 60," she says. "We're a very youth-obsessed community. If you happen to be an older woman in the workforce, you feel disadvantaged, and here's something that might benefit you … Should we judge them? I don't think so."

It is an interesting time to be ageing. By 2050, one in four Australians will be 65 or older, compared with about one in eight now. Last week's news alone included a Herald Sun report that 45 per cent of men aged 60-64 had full-time jobs, up from just over one-third six years ago. An ABC TV feature on Japan showed octogenarians playing in an over-60s rugby competition and a 74-year-old male porn star. In London, The Daily Telegraph reported on Britain's oldest mother leaving hospital with her newborn son. Fittingly, businesswoman Elizabeth Adeney, 66, named her firstborn Jolyon, or "young at heart".

The latest World Health Organisation statistics, released last month, found that an Australian man born in 2007 can expect to live to 79 (up from 74 in 1990); for women it's 84 (up from 80). In a decade or less, perhaps it will be 80, not 70, that is thought of as old.

Such surges in life expectancy, coupled with the ageing population, have fundamentally changed perceptions of later life. David Chalke, social analyst with AustraliaSCAN, says only a minority of "narcissists" opt for cosmetic surgery or hormone injections. The majority of people in their 60s are staying active and social simply because they can expect to live for another 20 years.

He sees the trend towards older people trying to stay relatively fit, healthy and "youthful" as a celebration of their age. "You are seeing this group of largely baby boomers starting to enter their 60s celebrating who they are," he says. "Why should I suddenly be banned from having a nice haircut and wearing nice clothes — I am still a sentient human being."

Hal Kendig, research professor of ageing and health at the University of Sydney, says the growth in the ranks of the elderly could ultimately undermine today's association of age with being poor and powerless. By sheer weight of numbers, the future could one day belong to the old King Priams of the world, rather than its young, battle-ready princes.

What might such a future look like? One image is that of Melbourne doctor John Levin, featured in The Sunday Age last month, who has been injecting human growth hormones into his stomach every night for 15 years. "I feel great, I feel like I'm 50 — and I'm going to be 80 in two years," he crowed. He prescribes the controversial treatment, which is not approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for anti-ageing purposes, to middle-aged men who want to look and feel younger. "This is the way of the future," he said.

But David Le Couteur, professor of geriatric medicine at the Centre for Education and Research on Ageing, in Sydney, describes such misuse of growth hormones as "appalling and unethical in the strongest terms".

He says little of the "anti-ageing" industry — itself a term of scorn — stands up to scientific scrutiny. "There is a large anti-ageing industry, which promotes a whole range of products the purpose of which is to take money from people frightened of ageing and give it to people who are manufacturing the products."

Anti-ageing treatments, such as those using antioxidants, high vitamin doses or hormone treatments, have zero impact on the ageing process and can cause harm, he says.

There is no fountain of youth, obviously. Well, not yet anyway. But there is growing scientific clamour around the development of drugs that could soon see us living longer and healthier lives, while slowing down the visible signs of ageing.

Expatriate Australian David Sinclair, professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School, will this year start testing hundreds of patients on new drugs to treat diseases of ageing, such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and osteoporosis.

The drugs activate genes in the body that control the pace of ageing, which until now have been triggered by strict calorie restriction diets. We could one day eat whatever we please and still extend our lifespan by up to 30 per cent, he says. "What we may see are 90-year-olds still playing tennis and hanging out with their great grandkids," he tellsThe Sunday Age from Boston.

"There are others who believe one day we will have the technology to live 1000 years, but we are working on an extra five to 10 years, where you would live longer but healthier lives … I don't think it would make for a healthy society for people to live forever — I think turnover is healthy.

"On the other hand, I don't think 80 years is long enough to really make use of all our years of training and experience. These days some of us don't finish university and training until our 30s — you don't want your life to be half over at that stage."

Melburnian Pat La Manna, the senior Australian of the year, is looking forward to turning a mere 77 on Wednesday. Two years ago, at age 75, he sold his banana business to start afresh in the nursery industry. He speaks to The Sunday Age after returning home from the market, where he has been working since 6am.

"I have never been so happy in all my life because I don't worry about my age. I could be living for another 30 years, so I keep on doing things," he says.

He insists he never thinks about the past, only the future. "You're born and you know you're going to die, you know you're going to get old. But it's a blessing. You should appreciate as you get older to enjoy life better and enjoy each day as it comes," he says.

"You can't change nature. It doesn't matter how much cream you put on your face or operations you have to change your looks, you'll never be happy."

A wrinkle in time: fighting the youth revolution

MELBOURNE comedian Wendy Little recalls cleaning out her mother-in-law's home after she died a couple of years ago, aged 86, and discovering her jars of anti-ageing cream.

Her grandmother likewise did not embrace the signs of old age. "I remember her saying, 'I look in the mirror and don't want to look at myself — that's not who I am'," she says. "She preferred to look at herself in photographs when she was younger — 'That's me, not this wrinkly outer shell'."

Such sentiments resonate with her now that she is firmly embedded within what she calls "the middle ages".

"I hate ageing. I hate the fact that once you get to a certain age you tend to become a bit invisible and the young are the ones who get all the attention," she says. "I think back to when my mum was getting to her middle ages in the '70s — there wasn't the pressure we have to look like Elle Macpherson running around on a beach in her bikini. We can't let it all hang out any more, we have got to have no wrinkles and spend a fortune on anti-ageing creams.

"There is not the recognition that the more you age the more valuable the contribution you can make because you might have wisdom and knowledge."

Little, who co-staged a show titled The Middle Ages at this year's Melbourne Comedy Festival, won't reveal her age. "Once you're a certain age you've got that working against you, unless you're a guy."

She admits to using anti-wrinkle eye cream and to have once rubbed hemorrhoid cream on her crow's feet, on the advice of a TV current affairs show. ("It's a bit greasy and you've got to make sure your husband doesn't use it for its intended purpose.") And she would be willing to try Botox if she had the money, "just to see if it made me feel better".

"Just the phrase 'anti-ageing' makes ageing something horrific and bad. We should all be embracing getting older and feeling more comfortable in ourselves. For me, this is all more an external thing. I am not saying I don't feel comfortable with who I am inside, but really I hate this pressure we're getting constantly from magazines and media and film on how we are supposed to look at this age, because it makes you doubt yourself."

She wonders, too, if the pressure to look young is born of an even greater fear than ageing: death.

"Maybe because it means you have to come face to face with your mortality, which is something everyone is trying to avoid," she says.

"I guess there is a fear, particularly when I have seen elderly relatives go through the decline towards their death, about what age means and the indignity people can suffer."

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