There are three common views of aging in America. We’ll call one view “The Amazing Disappearance.” Another is “The Centenarian Takeover.” The third is “The Incredible Thinning Line.”
I realized this while trying to do a simple task. At least, I thought it was simple.
That was when I discovered The Amazing Disappearance.
My task: Find out, online, what the appropriate exercise heart rate is for a man whose nearest birthday is 80.
That would be me.
The Amazing Disappearance
So, I Googled the question. The first link I followed stopped at 65. The second stopped at 70. So, did the third, fourth and fifth.
It made me wonder: Are you even supposed to have a heart rate after 65?
Like many things in aging, the constant background story is that it’s as though you no longer exist once you’ve turned 65. Information gets sketchy. You get discount prices because, well, you’re discounted. An expected no-show. No one notes you are no longer there because they didn’t see you in the first place.
Fortunately, I found a chart that covered all five heart rate zones for ages 15 through 95. It was available for $24.95 as a 24-by-36-inch poster.
I also found the basic formula for heart rate, age and exercise on the Centers for Disease Control website. It can be used without buying a poster.
The Centenarian Takeover
When an older person does become visible, it’s in the style of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” The Looming Takeover by Centenarians becomes visible when you look for population estimates segmented by age. According to Statista, the number of centenarians this year is estimated at 92,000, up from 50,000 in the 2000 census.
The number is expected to more than double by 2040, more than double again by 2055, and hit 589,000 by 2060. That’s the equivalent of the current population of Baltimore or Milwaukee.
The “old-old” hordes
The number of people considered “old-old” – those 85 and over – is expected to rise from 6.7 million this year to 19 million in 2060, an increase of 12.3 million. That’s more than the combined population of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago today. It should be noted that those projections were done before Covid-19 started making its rounds.
During the same period, the population under age 18 will hardly budge, growing from 74 million to 80.1 million, an increase of only 6.1 million.
As early as 2034, the number of older adults will be greater than the number of children. It will be the first time in our history. We’ll be a thoroughly New (but old) America.
The Incredible Thinning Line
We get the opposite view, The Incredible Thinning Line, by looking at the life tables. Those tables, regularly produced and updated by the CDC, show deaths in groups of 100,000 Americans from birth to age 100.
While the picture has improved greatly in the last century, with ever more people living for decades beyond age 65, the graphic illustration of our mortality still resembles the famed (and brilliant) depiction of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia by Charles Joseph Minard – a thick line that thins, mile by mile, in the cold Russian winter. Of the 422,000 men who started, only 10,000 returned.
That’s pretty much how it is with aging.
Lots of people start, but no one gets out alive. Here’s how it goes decade by decade:
- Birth to Age 10. Of 100,000 Americans of all races and both genders, 99,326 will still be alive at age 10. In the first decade only 674 die.
- Age 10 to 20. Of 99,326 Americans alive at age 10, 98,937 will still be alive at age 20. In the second decade only 389 die.
- Age 20 to 30. Of 98,937 Americans alive at age 20, 97,872 will still be alive at age 30. In the third decade 1,065 die.
- Age 30 to 40. Of the 97,872 Americans alive at age 30, 96,321 will survive to age 40. In the fourth decade 1,551 die.
- Age 40 to 50. Of the 96,321 alive at 40, 93,797 will survive to age 50. In the fifth decade 2,524 die.
- Age 50 to 60. Of the 93,797 alive at 50, 88,226 will survive to age 60. In the sixth decade 5,571 die. After six decades of living, 88 percent are still alive. These are the safe decades.
- Age 60 to 70. Of the 88,226 alive at 60, 77,697 will survive to 70. In the seventh decade 10,529 die. As large a portion, 12 percent, die in this decade as died in the six preceding decades.
- Age 70 to 80. Of the 77,697 alive at 70, 57,839 will be alive at age 80. In the eighth decade, 19,858 die.
- Age 80 to 90. Of the 57,839 alive at 80, only 24,560 will be alive at age 90. In the ninth decade, 33,279 die. In this decade more people die than survive – but you still have a 42 percent chance of making it through.
- Age 90 to 100. Of the 24,560 alive at 90, 1,894 will be alive at age 100. A smaller number of people die, but that’s because so few started the decade. In fact, there’s less than a 10 percent chance of surviving the 10th decade.
Our group survival rate has improved, until recently, year after year after year. But whether older people are taking over, disappearing or invisible is entirely a matter of perspective.
Seldom mentioned, let alone celebrated, is a fourth perspective.
Never before have so many lived so long and so well.
Sources and References:
Heart Rate chart: https://productivefitness.ca/product/heart-rate-chart/
CDC heart rate formula: https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/measuring/heartrate.htm
Statista: Number of Centenarians: https://www.statista.com/statistics/996619/number-centenarians-us/
Census demographic data: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.pdf
Charles Joseph Minard’s graphic of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. https://www.google.com/search?q=graphic+of+Napoleon%27s+invasion+of+Russia&client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk01pNt6fJ-1fo5gad3if82jl8FF9Hg:1595527827787&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=gr9IVG6DVFfxPM%252CpVqm4vL8PXnNPM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSJOeWuRlkk7Ai10KU5gqrcC3kqXQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj00Z2r_OPqAhWNB80KHU4ZACYQ9QEwAHoECAkQHQ&biw=1280&bih=644#imgrc=YpGMNp-TSDo4DM
United States Life Tables, 2017, June 24, 2019 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_07-508.pdf
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Photo: Pexabay.com
(c) Scott Burns, 2020