I’m ANTI “anti-aging”

I hate the word “anti-aging.”  Yes, I’ve written a book with “anti-aging” in the subtitle.  And yes, I’ve attended the World Anti-Aging Convention.  And yes, I have a Google Alert for “anti-aging.”  But I hate the word.

“Anti-aging” defines, I think, a commercialized, product-infused, huckster-driven world.  It’s associated with $200 an ounce wrinkle crèmes and surgeries that transform faces into masks and kooks who arrange to freeze their bodies in cryogenically controlled coffins.  It’s the latest and greatest miracle approach, the one supplement, the one hormone, the one superfood, the newest sensation, the big secret known to only Hollywood celebs and nonagenarians in the Caucasus.

There’s a desperation about the term “anti-aging,” a failure to ground oneself in what it means to be alive.  You can’t be anti aging – against aging – the way you can be anti capital punishment or anti animal testing.  If you stand against aging, if you say “No!” to aging, what exactly are you in favor of?  What are your options?  Death or the deep freeze?  Or maybe the anti-agers just want to live forever – or at least longer than our currently expected lifespan.

Or not.

I just read a sobering study in the Journal of Gerontology that found that, while life expectancy did in fact increase 1 year during the past decade, people faced an additional 1.2 years of serious illness and an extra 2 years of disability.

I stand with those in the scientific and medical communities who frame the whole thing differently.  They are not against aging; they are in favor of increased and prolonged health and vitality. Most of those interested in untangling the mysteries of aging think about how to extend that healthy middle of life that so many of us enjoy.  Someone cleverly coined the word “middlescense” (like adolescence only much older…and with no acne) to capture those generally vital years between, say, 40 and 65.  Prolonging middlescense is about preserving the (relatively) youthful function, attitude and even appearance of midlife into the years – and hopefully the decades – beyond.  Others talk about “extending the health span,” which is basically the same idea.  It’s not about extending the total number of years lived (lifespan); it’s about extending the total number of years lived with energy, vitality and health.  Or, as a very long bumpersticker might put it:  It’s not about adding years to life.  It’s about adding life to years.

That’s my version of “anti-aging.”