Boomers fatter and slower than ever
Australia’s baby boomers are now reaching retirement age and can expect an increased life span compared to the previous generation but the health behavioural risks now include physical inactivity, low vegetable consumption, obesity, and an increasing prevalence of diabetes.
A review of the health of Australian baby boomers in the Australasian Journal on Ageing shows that at age 60 in the period 2004-2007 women and men could expect to live to 86 and 82 years respectively. This amounted to an extra four years for women and five for men since 1980-1982.
In 1993 the leading causes of death were diseases of the circulatory system for people aged 45-64 and cancer for the total population. In 2007 the overall leading cause of death was ischaemic heart disease but the main cause of death for those aged 45-64 was cancer.
The report by Nancy Humpel, Hal Kendig, and Kate O’Loughlin of Sydney University, and Yvonne Wells of La Trobe University, said that life expectancy had increased and cardiovascular disease had decreased largely as a result of better control of cholesterol, hypertension, and reduced smoking rates.
But a “rapid increase in overweight and obesity, diabetes and other lifestyle related conditions has meant that much of this time gained may be lived with chronic illness and disability”.
The report said that socioeconomic inequalities in smoking and obesity rates in Australia had widened from 1989 to 2001, and the country’s changing urban life style, including more car transport and a consumer culture, had contributed to increasing health disorders.
