|
Boomers Don't Want to Look Like Their Parents, Turn to Aging Management |
|
|
|
Mystic, CT -- The wellness literature as of late is focusing on aging management – and that's probably due to the simple fact that the front end of the boomer segment turns 60 this year.
Boomers are defined as those Americans born between 1946 and 1964, and have been the biggest economic force of any age segment previously or since. They had massive influence on the hot products such as tie dyed shirts to Ford Mustangs, hippies, and Beatles music in the heyday of the sixties. Then they migrated to "Baby on Board" in the seventies and eighties.
"Now they're focusing their energy and their wealth on 'wellness', " says Al Valente, chief editor of FitCommerce.com. "Wellness is not medicine or pharmacology, it's those proactive preventive lifestyle and nutritional changes that will have a dramatic effect as the boomers age. The vitamin and mineral industry alone is estimated to become a $120 billion business by the year 2011, and it's all driven by the boomers not wishing to look like their parents at that age".
Valente who peers over all of the literature coming out on wellness and alternative medicine is spotting a trend in activities on the actions many middle-age people are taking to stave off the mental and physical deterioration and particularly the diseases brought on by aging.
The big three are fast but effective exercise, proper nutrition, and lifestyle changes which incorporate being more active, not smoking, wearing sun protection, and managing stress.
Fast exercise is defined as that which can be performed in a half hour. Witness the explosion of express gyms like Curves, where women can get in and out in 30 minutes and not spend their life at the gym. Another popular trend is that of yoga. With yoga you get multiple benefits of gaining strength, improving balance, and that mind-body connection which controls stress. Through exercise, people release good hormones and improve their blood lipid profile – all spells anti-aging.
Proper nutrition can be boiled down to getting back to what our grandparents ate, natural foods, and away from what boomers ate as kids, processed foods. Age management requires copious consumption of colorful fruits that are loaded with anti-oxidants which scavenge up the harmful free radicals that cause premature aging. Eating 4 small meals and day and watching the glycemic load is also important to keep that powerful weight loss hormone, insulin, at a constant low level which tells your body not to store fat.
Finally, something boomers all forgot how to do during the big wage earning years, proper sleep. Sleep is not only restorative, but the right amount of sleep will release the youth hormone, Human Growth Hormone (HGH), which helps to not only keep the weight off, but keeps one youthful and vibrant.
"The popular books coming out by Dr. Nicholas Perricone, Dr. Andrew Weil, and Dr. Vincent Giampapa, all deal with how to properly manage aging, the natural way. I see a flood of new books and articles coming our way as the boomers, go screaming and kicking not to get older, " recapped Valente. |
