Today's 50-year-olds leading life styles of 25-year-old counterparts

A recent study has found that people over 50 years of age are increasingly leading the life style of 25 year olds.

London, May 1 : A recent study has found that people over 50 years of age are increasingly leading the life style of 25 year olds.

The study, which compared the way of life of the over-50s today with that of 1957, has found that they are battlling with age with equal energy.

The Future Foundation's report 'Forever Young' revealed that the older are living the lives that 25-year-olds led in 1957 through travelling, playing golf and going out with their friends.

In 1957 men could look forward to just 7.6 years after retirement, and women just under 14 years. But with general health improving drastically and life expectancy towering, men aged 60 now have 15 years and women over 22 years to spend after leaving work.

"Today 50 is closer to the middle of our life than to its end, with many economic and psychological factors bringing this change. Psychologically, there has been a shift from a 'closing-down' expectation for the second half of life towards a much more optimistic 'opening-up-of-new-doors' spirit of good times ahead," Timesonline quoted Martin Lloyd-Elliott, a psychologist, as saying.

The most noteworthy lifestyle variation exposed by the study was travel. It found that the older generation was using cheap air fares to the fullest and that the over-50s took an average of eight or nine holidays each year compared with just one or two in 1957.

The average expenditure on holidays rose from 128 pounds to 845 pounds, attuned for inflation.

The number of trips taken further than Europe and North America by 55-64 year olds has doubled to 1.23 million over the last 10 years. Pensioners are now worth 3.1 billion pounds to the travel industry, three times the amount they spent in 1995.

The report, commissioned by Intune, a financial services subsidiary of Help the Aged, shows that the over-50s take personal fitness just as seriously as younger generations did 50 years ago.

They take part in the same amount of sport as 25-year olds did in 1957, at an hour a week.

The older generation has also become energetic shoppers by spending twice as much time shopping as their counterparts in the 1950s.

Those over retirement age actually spend more time shopping than 16-24 year-olds today, at an average of three hours 40 minutes a week compared with one hour 48 minutes.

"My life is wonderful. I don't feel like I'm 72 at all. When I look back to when my parents were in the sixties they seemed much older. They had their own business and were both quite exhausted by the time they retired. They did not live much beyond that point to enjoy their retirement," Brenda Dixon, a 72 year old woman said.

ANI