{"id":4847,"date":"2024-05-03T10:56:01","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T14:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/?p=4847"},"modified":"2024-05-03T10:56:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T14:56:01","slug":"study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html","title":{"rendered":"Study Reveals That the Definition of Old Age is Changing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"old
Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Are we getting older later in life? People dread the idea of aging; however, a new study by an international team of researchers revealed that the definition of \u201cold age\u201d is changing. Compared to previous generations, people now put off considering themselves \u201cold\u201d until later in life. The study, conducted by a team of researchers from Germany and the United States and published in the journal\u00a0Psychology and Aging<\/a><\/em>, analyzed data from over 14,000 people born between 1911 and 1974 who participated in the ongoing German Ageing Survey. Participants were asked a simple question: \u201cAt what age would you describe someone as old?\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the team\u2019s findings, people in their mid-60s believe \u201cold age\u201d\u00a0begins around 75. This perception, though, varied\u00a0significantly across different generations or \u201cbirth cohorts.\u201d People born later, especially those born after 1935, tended to push back the age at which they considered someone old. In other words, the threshold for being considered \u201cold\u201d has shifted upwards over time. \u201cLife expectancy\u00a0has increased, which might contribute to a later perceived onset of old age. Also, some aspects of health have improved over time, so that people of a certain age who were regarded as old in the past may no longer be considered old nowadays,\u201d says study author Dr. Markus Wettstein from Humboldt University in Germany in a media release.<\/p>\n

Several factors drive this change in the perspective of \u201cold age.\u201d With people living longer, the goalpost for what\u2019s considered old naturally moves further out. Changes to\u00a0retirement age\u00a0could also have an impact. In Germany, the retirement age has gradually increased from 65 and will reach 67 by 2031. If people work longer, it makes sense that they may not consider themselves \u201cold\u201d until later. What piqued researchers\u2019 interest is that they found the trend of delaying old age has accelerated in recent decades but may now be reaching a plateau.<\/p>\n

While people born between 1911-1935 and 1936-1951 had very different perceptions of when old age started, there was little difference between the 1936-1951 cohort and those born 1952-1974. They speculate this could be due to a slowdown in life expectancy increases. \u201cThe trend toward postponing old age is not linear and might not necessarily continue in the future,\u201d notes Dr. Wettstein. The study also revealed some interesting demographic differences. Women, on average, considered old age to start two-and-a-half years later than men did. This gender gap has gotten even wider in younger generations. People living in former East Germany, who have a lower life expectancy, tended to peg the beginning of old age earlier than their West German counterparts.<\/p>\n

Feeling lonely, having more chronic diseases, and worse self-rated health were also linked to considering old age to start sooner. So why does it matter when we consider old age to begin? Our perception can actually have real impacts on health and well-being. Previous studies have shown that people who believe old age starts later tend to have better self-rated health and lower risks of heart disease and other illnesses. Conversely, perceiving the onset of old age as earlier is associated with worse health outcomes.<\/p>\n

Researchers caution that if we postpone \u201cold age\u201d too far into the future, it could backfire by making people complacent about preparing for the challenges that come with aging. There may be an optimal middle ground in terms of health and well-being. The findings also underscore how our concepts of aging are shaped not just by individual characteristics but by the social and historical context we live in. As life expectancy has increased and health in later life has generally improved, outdated notions of what it means to be \u201cold\u201d are being revised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are we getting older later in life? People dread the idea of aging; however, a new study by an international team of researchers revealed that the definition of \u201cold age\u201d is changing. Compared to previous generations, people now put off considering themselves \u201cold\u201d until later in life. The study, conducted by a team of researchers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":4853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40,69],"tags":[38,150],"class_list":["post-4847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-physical-health","category-study","tag-aging","tag-journal-of-psychology-and-aging"],"yoast_head":"\nStudy Reveals That the Definition of Old Age is Changing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are we getting older later in life? People dread the idea of aging; however, a new study revealed that the definition of \u201cold age\u201d is changing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Study Reveals That the Definition of Old Age is Changing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Are we getting older later in life? People dread the idea of aging; however, a new study revealed that the definition of \u201cold age\u201d is changing.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Cup of Wellness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-05-03T14:56:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/410\/2024\/05\/old-age-definition-changing-credit-shutterstock.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lauren McKeithen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Study Reveals That the Definition of Old Age is Changing","description":"Are we getting older later in life? People dread the idea of aging; however, a new study revealed that the definition of \u201cold age\u201d is changing.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Study Reveals That the Definition of Old Age is Changing","og_description":"Are we getting older later in life? People dread the idea of aging; however, a new study revealed that the definition of \u201cold age\u201d is changing.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html","og_site_name":"Daily Cup of Wellness","article_published_time":"2024-05-03T14:56:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/410\/2024\/05\/old-age-definition-changing-credit-shutterstock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lauren McKeithen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html","name":"Study Reveals That the Definition of Old Age is Changing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/410\/2024\/05\/old-age-definition-changing-credit-shutterstock.jpg","datePublished":"2024-05-03T14:56:01+00:00","dateModified":"2024-05-03T14:56:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/#\/schema\/person\/67183b7ec4ffc995620174c78f9cc68a"},"description":"Are we getting older later in life? People dread the idea of aging; however, a new study revealed that the definition of \u201cold age\u201d is changing.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/410\/2024\/05\/old-age-definition-changing-credit-shutterstock.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/410\/2024\/05\/old-age-definition-changing-credit-shutterstock.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Shutterstock.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/2024\/05\/study-reveals-that-the-definition-of-old-age-is-changing.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Study Reveals That the Definition of Old Age is Changing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/","name":"Daily Cup of Wellness","description":"Healthy Living, Mental Health, Nutrition, Fitness, and More","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/#\/schema\/person\/67183b7ec4ffc995620174c78f9cc68a","name":"lmckeithen","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/author\/lmckeithen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4847"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4859,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4847\/revisions\/4859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailycupofwellness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}