To think living to over 100 will become the norm

[Wanttogohome78]

Partner doesn’t think so I don

I wouldn’t mind li I g put my days in a nice care home eating good food amd cakes and drinking tea every day. Good activities and celebrations. I’d be quite happy really. As long as my caters were kind and I still have my faculties, I’d be ok growing frail and very very old.

Covid has taken a few years off life expectancy. It's put us back where we were in the beginning of the 2000s and the expectation these days by demographers is that this is likely this is going to remain for a while, i.e. not going to rebound the way it did after Spanish flu last centur. Basically wiped out all the progress made in smoking reduction and car safety. It's easy to think that the progress in improving life expectancy will continue as that has been the experience of most of us for decades now. But think of HIV in Africa, the decline in life expectncy among Russian men in the 90s. It's not a given at all.

I wouldn't want to live to 100. Not least because I had my DC young and they'd be around 80 then themselves, if they were still alive. I don't want to outlive them.

My "ideal" would be to keep some mobility and my faculties intact and "pop off" between 80-85. That's the dream! Ideally I'd like 10 good retirement years at least. But who knows.

My mum is 75 and lost her 2 best friends to cancer in the past couple of years (both marginally younger than her) so she's become quite focused on her own passing now. Even though it might not be for years. It's hard when you're old and all your friends start dying. You maybe lose your partner etc. It's a lot of sadness to carry.

Maybe, but euthanasia will be legalized within the next decade so the overall effect upon the care system may be a positive one.

Nah I'm working class, my body will be trashed by the time I retire at 68!

No, I don't think so. As others have said, life expectancy seems to have plateaued and is in decline.
I also think that we will see assisted suicide legalised at some point soon.

@AthenaPopodopolous

I wouldn’t mind li I g put my days in a nice care home eating good food amd cakes and drinking tea every day. Good activities and celebrations. I’d be quite happy really. As long as my caters were kind and I still have my faculties, I’d be ok growing frail and very very old.

How many residents do you think will have all their wits about them? It's not like being in a hotel with a bunch of your mates. You don't get to choose your food, either, or what's on TV, if you're sitting in the lounge.

People with money will probably live to 100 and more, but health outcomes for disadvantaged people are just as poor as ever, if not perhaps even worse.

My mum is 92 and in good health, living in her own home with a lot of visitors, but she sees herself as in the waiting room. She knows she has a strong heart and doubts she'll die of a heart attack - it would've happened by now, I think. She thinks it's very likely she'll fall - she's broken a few bones and if she fell she could easily break her leg or her pelvis. She then wouldn't be able to stay at home. Her sister was in a nursing home and said she was just waiting to die - hardly any sight, terrible hearing loss, hugely clever and interesting but unable to read or watch TV or listen to the radio or do the cryptic crosswords. She was a few years older than my mum and tbh it wasn't a life my mum looked forward to living.

@MyNameIsAngelicaSchuyler

I think it depends. For the richest, healthiest and fittest it could become more common. For the poor, obese, more sickly they will die younger than their parents.

The ever increasing divide.

I think this is a good point . Initially I was thinking 'no' as I see a lot of quite young people with health problems caused through poor diet , lack of exercise. This does tend to be in poorer areas so I agree with this poster .

Now she just sits alone in her room all day, refusing to socialise with the other residents. Last time I visited her she just cried the whole time saying she wanted to die 😔

That's reminded me of a woman I knew. She was in a care home and very frail with osteoporosis. When I visited her one time she told me 'I'm just trying to stay sane until the end' which sounded so sad.

I also think euthanasia will be legalised at some point.

But there are likely to be medical advances which we can't even imagine, so it's hard to predict life expectancy in the future..

I think this could have happened and was starting to happen, but the way life is now I don't think it will happen.. cost of living is so high, lots of people won't ever retire, standard of living is getting lower etc

AthenaPopodopolous
I wouldn’t mind li I g put my days in a nice care home eating good food amd cakes and drinking tea every day. Good activities and celebrations. I’d be quite happy really. As long as my caters were kind and I still have my faculties, I’d be ok growing frail and very very old.
How many residents do you think will have all their wits about them? It's not like being in a hotel with a bunch of your mates. You don't get to choose your food, either, or what's on TV, if you're sitting in the lounge.

To be fair @HollowTalk a lot of care homes have separate floors or wings depending on residents' individual needs, plus a choice of menu, and there's always the option to sit in your room if you want to watch something different on TV. I always think that the assisted living area at mum's care home looks really nice - sadly this will be out of my reach financially .

The way we are going in the UK, no.

I don't think it will become the norm- in my work I visit many elderly people and the ones who make it to a hundred have eaten extremely leanly their whole lives (their dinner plate size is much smaller than I have!) they have walked significantly more than many younger generations, they haven't had washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, cars etc all their lives and I don't know any who would order takeaways/eat between meals or had a gardener/went to a car wash when they were younger so they were physically active in daily life I think. Although advances in medical care have been massive I think it unlikely we will see 100 as a common birthday.

To me that’s utter misery. I’m in daily pain now, another 40 years of it? No way can I do that.

I read somewhere that the first person to live to 1000 is probably already alive. (Not suggesting it will be the standard!)

Hope it's not me.

Euthanasia needs to be legalised (but not compulsory! -I'm not suggesting a Logan's run scenario)

I really hope not as I don't want to

Oh god I hope not. The way things are going o don’t want my life expectancy to go past 37 (I’m 36 now).

@TinySaltLick

I don't have time to read all of that, can you summarise?

@TinySaltLick

LMFAO!!! That made me seriously LOL!!!! 🤣

@Wanttogohome78 No. Living to over 100, won't become 'the norm' I don't think. Especially as people are becoming more unhealthy/ obese/ stressed/ drinking more etc...

Go over to any NHS thread on here or just see how bad it is for yourself these days , not to mention the obesity crisis in the UK ( I am overweight myself , not fat shaming at all , but it is a worry ) and I doubt that many will make beyond their 70s , let alone 100!
I don't want to live that long anyway.
Can't speak for others of course !

We should all have access to the same health care and advice as the royal family. Then I wouldn’t mind.

I think we're at a peak of health at the moment. We have good health into retirement ages, when many people didn't used to live long enough to retire.

I'm not convinced it will continue to improve- if anything it will slide backwards. The diet of people born since 70's has got worse and worse, thanks to ultra processed foods.

"If you need proof, the Office for National Statistics has produced it, in its new report on socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality. Their findings are bleak, and the gap between rich and poor has widened considerably since they first started collecting data in 2001."

"Four out of 10 male deaths in the most deprived areas are premature. The contributing factors – poor housing, poverty, unemployment and lack of education "

"In some parts of the country life expectancy is at levels last seen when the throne was occupied by Queen Victoria."

From the Independent