5 Good Boomer Reads September 20, 2018

The 5 Good Boomer Reads for the week of September 20, 2018:

• How Social Isolation Ruins Men’s Health
• Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong
• Baby boomers still outspend millennials
• RIP: The Beetle 1949-2019
• My Journey Into Medicare

Researchers Examine What Social Isolation Can Do To Men’s Health

It turns out that some of us Boomer males, and the Gen X kids too, weren’t real good at maintaining those friendships with our buddies. Now research is telling us that we need to reconnect if we want to stay healthy.

“An analysis of nearly 150 studies found that people with weak social relationships had about a 50 percent higher mortality risk than people with stronger ties.”

Not that I am surprised. We tended to work long hours, sacrifice personal time for the job. And we may have neglected home life with long commute times and houses in the suburbs that needed mortgage payments.

But, still, we should have kept those friendships our wives warned us about.

Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong

• Weight and health are not synonymous.
• Diets do not work, every diet no matter what.
• Doctors are not helping.

Three facts that are hard to swallow, yet true.

Healthy people are healthy. Overweight people are simply overweight. There is a Venn diagram showing a large crossover, but it is by no means in complete alignment. Many overweight people are healthy, some are healthier than their skinny counterparts. The may workout, build strength, raise their bone density, be extremely healthy, and still remain overweight.

Diets often compound the weight gain. Between 95% to 98% of diets end in failure and two-thirds of dieter gain back more weight then they lose. The key is that a 3% lose in body weight triggers a 17% drop in metabolism, a Sisyphean one step forward and six steps back.

The cure? There really isn’t one, but there is a remedy that may help: reducing/removing highly processed foods from our diet and adding back the unprocessed vegetables and fruits. Remember when your plate was dished with one green vegetable and one yellow vegetable? That was a healthy plate of food.

Turns out Grandma was pretty smart.

Gray is the new black: Baby boomers still outspend millennials

Millennials have dominated headlines in recent years, but baby boomers (1946-1964) continue to dominate consumer spending in the U.S., now accounting for more than half of all U.S. spending.

And  boomer spending is continuing to grow.

“By 2020, there will be about 11 million1 more consumers over age 60. While the share of spending among younger consumers is expected to decline over the next 10 years, older boomers should gradually spend more with those aged 60+ reaching a 33 percent share of aggregate spending by 2025.”

One big reason: Baby boomers are staying in the workforce longer—the golden years no longer mean slowing down. The only age group segment showing growth in labor force participation—that is, as a percent of those eligible to work (16 and over)—is with people aged 60 and older.

Volkswagen to kill the Beetle in 2019 as car sales plunge

After 70 years in continuous production, a Boomer icon ends. Volkswagen announced the beetle is closing production in 2019. Although it is possible it could return in some future form, the car will no longer be in production anywhere after 2019.

Many of us Boomer males had Beetles as a first car. Or even better, the Volkswagen bus, which was resurrected this year everywhere but in the U.S. But the Beetle is no more.

The only thing we cannot say about the Beetle is “we hardly knew ye.” Until next time, Beetle.

My Journey Into Medicare

Oddly enough, the federal government came through pretty quickly. This week I received–and paid–a bill for Medicare. I also received and paid a bill for a Medicare Advantage program. The monthly cost is about 30% of my last full-coverage insurance and the coverage is actually better.

At this point I don’t need the coverage. I haven’t been sick outside of a cold in years. I did catch the flu a couple of decades ago when the flu shot was a bad match for the strains that showed up and I had a bad case of food poisoning at a convention about five years ago, but that’s all.

I did have a run-in with a closed door that gave me a concussion and two black eyes. Also a couple of knee and shoulder injuries in some clumsy attempts at fun activities, but those were cleared up with time and a few physical therapy sessions.

The Medicare Part D is not needed yet, either, I don’t take any drugs outside an occasional OTC painkiller, usually Advil, for overworked muscles of the weekend warrior type or maybe a bad headache from too much computer time.

We’ll see what happens in the Medicare baseline checkup. Gee, I feel so good now I really hope they don’t find anything.

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