Old People Need Different Body Treatment than Young People

Everybody knows that aging changes a body. It is evident in animals and in the human body. We don't have to wonder, we can see it in those who have really aged. They have grey hair, wrinkles, some of them have scars. They dont' move as fast and they seem a lot more cautious in their movements next to a younger person. Are those signs of the privilege of getting old? Maybe. There has been an obsession in many cultures with "looking youthful" as it was attached to an idea of beauty and health. It seemed a common or obvious notion: Young people are healthy, fit, beautiful and if we want to survive or be loved that's what we have to be. So came the health gurus and gym experts. They will sell you any speech or product in the name of "keeping you fit and beautiful" and since culture accepts that being young is better than being old, people blow tons of money on any gimmick directed at that narrative. Old women may be more susceptible to these "advisors" sales pitches because women tend to be vain. I am a vain woman most of the time - some people call it pride. Though it may be considered a vice or an "ugly" part of my personality, it also motivates me to do something good for my body and my self. Pride or Vanity is the only reason I have for "caring" about my body or wanting to keep it in some kind of healthy and/or presentable functioning.

I am not a fitness guru. I don't know all the names of every Yoga move. I don't know how many bench presses it takes to create a fitness regime. I don't know which vitamin or drug can help or hurt a person who is trying to achieve a healthier body. I'm a simple person who trusts my own body. When a gym trainer wants me to sweat and hurt so that I can achieve strength and muscle, I look at him like he's crazy. You want me to hurt now so that I don't hurt later? What for? If I don't want to hurt later, I don't want to hurt now. It's not a matter of laziness, it's a matter of logic. I'm not a sadist and I don't believe in that slogan "No pain, no gain." I'm not trying to dissuade the gym fanatics from memberships or achieving certain body sculpting goals. I'm just saying that old people have different needs, different bodies, and different attitudes about health, beauty, and fitness. I don't think the gym trainers or fitness gurus cater to the elderly at all. Water aerobics is the only thing I ever saw on any of their gym schedules that seemed suitable for the elderly, yet they want the elderly to pay full membership price as if the elderly can use or enjoy all the membership benefits as the young do. Are you beginning to see why there is a thing called "Senior Discount"?

When I was a gym member, I went to use the gym about once or twice per month - not two or three times per week like the younger folks. I mostly wanted to go to the gym to do a few laps in the swimming pool and some aerobic dance on the mat. I wasn't interested in body building with the weight machines. I wasn't interested in stressing out my knees on the stair climber machine. I wasn't interested in playing basketball or raquetball by myself. I wasn't interested in Zumba because the music is too loud and too fast. I'm not the same as the young people. So I dropped my membership, because all I saw there was a bunch of activities and equipment designed to cater to young people's bodies and young people's vanity. There wasn't enough there for old people to call a membership fee (discounted or not) worth the money or the travel to get to the gym. It was very disappointing too because as a young adult (20's, 30's, 40's) I noticed that there were so many activities to keep the children happy like bouncy houses, playgrounds, the ball crawl, rollerskating rinks, etcetera. Yet they did not offer anything like that for the elderly and if an older person wanted to join in with the children (which is a very brave notion) they were looked at suspiciously - As if wanting to feel joy is some kind of crime once you're over the hill. I was 49 years old and did a cartwheel in the grass, and the looks I got from other people were perplexing. They looked at me as if I was the most evil person in the world. Like I was trying to show off. Is doing a cartwheel in your 50's really that awful? Is it worse than an 18 year old bragging about an $80,000 car that they just got from their parents as a graduation present?

Moving on. I just want to say for the elderly people who feel like I do - trust yourself and trust your body. Don't let society's view of beauty and fitness dictate to you what you need. No one knows better what your body is feeling, craving, or needing than you do. When my body is aching, no one knows but me. When I'm craving a cheeseburger, my body knows why. When I'm crashing because I drank too much coffee or ate too many sweets, I know what just happened. We've lived over 50 years and we got to know our bodies. Yeah, our bodies changed over time. I'm not as fast or flexible as I used to be. I could work on that, but it will never be the way it was in my 20's or 30's because I'm not a 20-something or a 30-something anymore. Even if I put hair dye and cover the gray hairs, that doesn't make my hair go back to the original color permanently. It's gray! And it's going to stay gray, no matter how much I try to cover it up. Why not just accept what it is, work with it, and celebrate it instead of being ashamed of it or treating this vision of life like it is not as beautiful or worthy as what was.

We tell our children that it's okay to be different. We tell them that they are still beautiful if they have freckles or a birthmark or something that stands out like Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. But as we are telling them that, we are not showing them that. Dying your hair? Covering up your wrinkles with make-up? Getting plastic surgery so you can look like someone else? Do you love your self? If you don't love your real self, how can you tell the children to love themselves for what they are?