As I am soon to be sixty, I was delighted to read the following in a newspaper (whose name shall not be mentioned in these hallowed halls).
60 is the new middle age: Our longer, healthier lives means we aren't classed as elderly until at least 70
• Old age should be calculated by how many years a person has left to live
• People aren't old until they are within 10 to 15 years of dying, scientists say
• Based on average life expectancy, women are 'old' at 73 and men at 70
• Middle age also starts later; a 60-year-old is now middle-aged, experts said
Your knees may be creaking. But if you are 60, you are merely middle-aged.
Scientists say that as we live longer, we need to rethink what we classify as being old.
They say that rather saying old age starts at a fixed age such as 60 or 65, we must factor in how much longer we have to live.
They suggest that we don’t think of ourselves as being old until we are within 10 to 15 years of the average life expectancy for our countrymen and women.
The average life expectancy for women in the UK is 82.8 years, meaning British females needn't consider themselves old until they are 72 or 73.
Similarly, with male life expectancy at 79 years, men don't become old until they are close to 70.
And if old age starts later, by definition, middle-age does too.
Researcher Dr Sergei Scherbov, said: ‘Age can be measured as the time already lived or it can be adjusted taking into account the time left to live.
‘What we think of as old has changed over time and it will need to continue changing in the future, as people live longer, healthier lives.
‘Someone who is 60 years old today, I would argue is middle-aged.
‘Two hundred years ago, a 60-year-old would be a very old person.’
He has previously shown that many people who are classified as old are as strong as younger people.
In his latest study, which was funded by the European Research Council, he calculates that if we fix old age at a certain point, the proportion of old people will increase with increasing life expectancy.
But, if you move the threshold for being old to take into account longer lives, the proportion of old people actually falls over time.
He added that modern medicine, education and improvements in sanitation, living conditions, diet and lifestyle, have all helped increase life expectancy.
