To not see 70 as elderly

[Ibeliveinyou]

I don’t know if if it’s because my parents are now that age but I just don’t see a 70 as old.

It isn’t

Depends on the person. My parents at 70 and 73 are most certainly not elderly. My in laws are very elderly and suffer from dementia and all sorts of health problems at 72. How people can age so differently is really quite shocking.

I’m 67 and definitely elderly. I’d start elderly as a description - that’s all it is, a description of age - at about 60 and old at about 75. I work nearly full time and am active and interested in many things, but definitely notice declining body strength and the aches and pains that go with ageing. It’s just a fact of life.

I think I it depends on the person. You can have someone in their seventies who is in good health and living a full life and on the other hand someone can have aged badly and is frail at the same age.

Also, it’s really strange that the word, which used to mean “older person” now seems to be interpreted as “very old person”. I’ve only seen this recently.

The average age of death in the UK is somewhere in the mid-eighties, I believe, therefore 70 most definitely is elderly.

It is certainly an older person isn't it? Elderly seems to be associated with "infirm" so seen as a negative, what do you class as elderly op

My parents didn't seem elderly at 70 but my in-laws definitely did. I'm almost 66 and don't feel elderly at all.

70is definitely elderly. Doesn't really matter how you 'feel'?, It's hardly middle aged is it?

I think our view of old age has changed alongside increasing life expectancy and expectancy of healthy years. Only as recently as 1990, U.K. average life expectancy was 74 - so 70 would have been elderly for many people. If you think back to Victor Meldrew in ‘One Foot in the Grave’ and how he was portrayed as a crotchety old man with one foot in the grave = edging towards death. His character had taken early retirement and was 59 at the beginning of the series! Richard Wilson was 53 when he began playing Victor. Yet he was supposedly to be viewed as an old man! I suppose we still retain that archetype in our minds to some extent.

It also depends on things like class, income level, how well you look after your health and so on. Poverty, ill-health and neglecting to look after your mind and body takes a terrible toll. I worked for a housing association which operated sheltered housing schemes, and comparing some of our residents in their sixties with some of our senior members of staff who were also in their sixties was night and day, you’d never have thought they were even close the same age. For some of our residents, I imagine that by 70 they’d have appeared and acted elderly; my colleagues, far less so.

Depends on the person

Dad was a hospital doctor, his step count for his job must have been extraordinary. He was bounding with energy at that age. He only packed it in at 75 because of insurance issues.

Alas, I did not inherit his energy level!

Wait until you get there... Good health and good genes count for a lot, but if you're unfortunate to suffer with illnesses 70 isn't young.

My DH is 70. I don’t see him as elderly. I’m 60 this year and don’t feel elderly either.

"Richard Wilson was 53 when he began playing Victor. Yet he was supposedly to be viewed as an old man! I suppose we still retain that archetype in our minds to some extent."

Never saw it, that has really shocked me!

I agree it depends on the person. My mum is 70 and is not robust. She needs a rest after walking a bit, can't lift anything heavy and has had the Covid vaccine. I do see her as elderly unfortunately, although I hope she'll be with us for many years to come.

My parents both died in 2017, they were 70 and 75. I didn't see them as elderly, but maybe they were 🤔

I think it’s elderly. You can be a fit healthy active engaged 70 year old, but you are very unlikely to have the bone density, skin elasticity, joint resilience, ability to bounce back, sleep for 12 hours etc of a 30-40 year old. Your cholesterol levels and heart rate are not going to be that of a healthy 40 year old. Im hoping to think 70 is great but physically it’s elderly. Not necessarily frail or inactive or not sporty, but elderly doesn’t mean you can’t be these things.

A lot of the lovely checkout ladies at work are 70+ and I definitely don’t see them as elderly. Some of them have more energy than me . They have a fantastic social life and pre pandemic they used to go on regular nights out together.

As people have said its depending on health attitude level of activity i know friends in their early 70s who are more like 50 year olds and i know friends in their 50s who are more like 80 year olds, my OH and i are mid 60s and definitely not elderly we normally ( no covid) i work two jobs, we go to motorbike rallies, live gigs go all over the place on our motorbike, club nights, motorbike shows, i havent been to the doctors for anything major in about ten years, dont feel old or act old , OH is in bouncing health we are lucky

Depends. SILs parents are 70, certainly not elderly, very active and healthy.
PILs have been elderly for some time, physically and mentally past it.

I think the age you are now defines what you think of as elderly. When I was 17, I worked in a children's home. Most of us trainee nursery nurses were the same age, but the Senior Nursery Nurses were really old... on average, about 28!
When I had my 60th birthday, I remember saying to my husband "If I get knocked over, the newspaper headline will say elderly woman knocked over"
I'm 71 now. I don't look at any of my friends and think of them as elderly, and I don't think of myself as elderly either, but I know that's how we're viewed by younger people.

I'd describe 70 as ageing not elderly!

Absolutely depends on the person. But perhaps getting to the age where things can change from fit and well to frail very fast with one illness.

My DF was fighting fit at 73 and clearly elderly at 74. It just took one illness and he never really recovered.

The Cambridge dictionary defines elderly as being a polite word for old. As people are living longer than ever before, I do not consider 70 to be old at all.

I truly never thought of my parents as old because they still seemed young in spirit.