April 27, 2025 • 58 mins
In this episode of 'The Aging Well Podcast,' Dr. Jeff Armstrong is joined by Neil Steinberg, director of the PBS documentary 'Aging in America: Survive or Thrive,' which explores the challenges and opportunities of aging in the U.S. He reflects on the legacy of Dr. Robert Butler, the impact of ageism, and the urgent policy issues facing older adults. The discussion emphasizes the importance of preventative care, intergenerational connections, and the need for community-based solutions to improve the aging experience. In this conversation, Dr. Armstrong and Neil Steinberg explore the multifaceted aspects of aging, emphasizing the importance of holistic growth, community support, and societal responsibility in promoting healthy aging. They discuss the need for access to healthy living, the impact of media on perceptions of aging, and the significance of language in discussing older adults. Personal stories from the documentary highlight unexpected insights, while the conversation concludes with a focus on redefining aging as a process of wisdom rather than decline.
Watch the trailer of 'Aging in America': https://www.pbs.org/show/aging-in-america-survive-or-thrive/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Welcome to the Aging Well Podcast, where we explore the
science, stories and strategies behind living a longer,
healthier, and more purposeful life.
In this episode, I am joined by film maker Neil Steinberg,
director of a powerful new PBS documentary, Aging in America,
Survive or Thrive. Backed by the John A Hartford
Foundation and premiering May 1st, the film takes a hard look
(00:32):
at the structural, economic, andethical challenges of aging in
the United States. From homelessness and economic
insecurity to flaws in our nursing home system, Aging in
America asks an urgent question.As our population grows older,
will we choose to merely help? People survive.
Or create a society where they can truly thrive.
Neil brings more than 4 decades of experience in the aging
(00:54):
space, including a long time connection to Doctor Robert
Butler, the pioneering gerontologist who coined the
term ageism and whose ground breaking book, Why Survive Being
Old in America inspired the documentary.
We discussed Doctor Butler's legacy, the stories behind
making the film, and what real solutions might look like for
the future of aging policy in America.
(01:15):
Stay tuned as we explore how compassionate care, smarter
policy, and a new vision of longevity might shape the path
forward and what it truly means to age well in America.
Neil, welcome to the Aging Well podcast.
If you want, just tell us a little bit about yourself and
what inspired you to create Aging in America, Survive or
Thrive. So I've been working in the film
(01:38):
and television field for my entire career and I've done, you
know, fiction and non fiction and sports and documentaries and
kind of been across the board. What inspired this particular
project actually goes back to early in my career when I was
like 30 years old. I had great opportunity to work
on a project called Caring for an Aging Society and it was a 20
(02:00):
part video series. And one of the people involved
was a gentleman by the name of Doctor Robert Butler, who was
truly a a pioneer in the field of aging.
And he hosted the series along with Ken Dykewald, who is also
the executive producer of it. Doctor Butler was quite
legendary and he wrote a book back in 1975 called the Why
(02:22):
Survive Being Old in America, and that book won the Pulitzer
Prize. So we did that.
I did that thing. I was in my 30s.
It was great. Then many decades later, I
bumped into a woman. I was working again with
Handeichwald, but bumped into a woman, Terry Fulmer, who is also
involved in that project. And Terry is now the president
(02:43):
of the John A Hartford Foundation, which is a
foundation, wonderful people that are dedicated to helping
the lives of older adults. And she and I started talking
about doing a documentary together for PBS.
And she said, you know, Doctor Butler, who passed away about a
dozen years ago, his legacy has never been honored the way it
(03:03):
should. So let's do a documentary to
honor back to Butler's legacy. And what evolved was we took his
book Why Survive, which was thislandmark in the area of
dermatology and geriatrics. And let's look 50 years later,
how are we doing, You know, based on what he said we needed
to do and how far have we come and how far do we still have to
(03:25):
go? So that was kind of the impetus
for this documentary. The documentary tackles some
pretty difficult truths about the aging infrastructure in the
United States. What do you think are the most?
Urgent policies, policy issues that we face right now.
I, I think one of the themes that came up a lot in the
(03:45):
filming of this, and I'm not a geriatrician or gerontologist or
an expert in anything. You know, what I do is kind of
make movies. And so I, I'm, but in listening
to people who are experts and have traveling the country
talking to the best minds in thefield, couple things emerge.
One big theme is that as a society we we spend a lot of
(04:07):
money to take care of older people in terms of healthcare
and all that stuff and in other social services.
But the universal consensus was we spend them in the wrong
places. Our society is really big on
spending money to fix problems. We don't spend money to prevent
problems and which could be way more cost effective, not only
(04:29):
financially but from the human standpoint obviously.
So that was kind of one of the big things that came across.
Another big thing that I learnedwas Doctor Butler claimed a word
back in 1965. Ages never existed before.
And she was the one who kind of first used that word and, you
know, popularized it. And one of the things we looked
(04:51):
at is does ageism still live, you know, in our modern world?
Or if we are, we past that? And the answer was clearly,
we're better than we were back in 1975.
But there are still remnants of it.
There are still in certain industries, in certain
attitudes, ageism still does exist.
And in our documentary we would show like commercials that were
(05:13):
ages that were, you know, eithermaking fun of older people and
kind of showing them in a goofy way or the incredible pressure
to, you know, not have wrinkles and not look like you're old.
And that whole industry that kind of says young is good, old
is bad. You know, that's still permeates
(05:33):
our society. So those were a couple of the
areas that we wanted to address.Other topics that we address in
our documentary include long term care in nursing homes.
That's kind of a very volatile area right now where part of it
is the COVID kind of exposed. Those are the best run places
(05:54):
and stuff like that. We kind of get into how
ownership affects the quality ofcare in nursing home and that
most importantly, what are the options for nursing homes?
They're they're financially not feasible with an aging
population. You know, there's just so many
more of us that we really have to rethink the system.
Yeah. I think I just heard recently
(06:15):
that is it this year that half of the population in the US will
be over 65. I.
Think this was a year that we hit that or something?
There was a year that we hit that, I don't know when that I
think that's a ways away. I think this year was, if I'm
not mistaken, and this is the year that more people are over
the age of 65 than under 18. OK, maybe that's what I heard.
(06:38):
Yeah. And I think and I I would double
check those bets before you did that.
Somewhere in there there's this.I mean, there's a lot of us old
folks in the country right now. And, and what's really
interesting about that is, and that's one of the things that
I've kind of been working in theaging field from the filmmaking
point of view, telling the story, is that this is a brand
new story. Throughout history there, there
(06:59):
were old people, but very few ofthem.
And so now we've got a whole, you know, generation, the whole
society here of people that havea lot of people north of 60 or
65 or 85, and that we've never had that before.
And it, it provides a lot of opportunities and challenges.
I mean, it's, it's great that you can, you know, experience
(07:21):
your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, your great, great
grandchildren. And how much wisdom can you
gather over that many years? It, it's really something to be
celebrated. But at the same time, there's
burdens on it. I mean, it's, it's if if you're
not in good health and you don'thave financial security, those
later years can be really challenging and difficult.
(07:42):
So was there any particular story or interview in the film
that left the most lasting impact on you personally?
There was a couple, one particularly was we visited a
couple of in Wyoming, Brendan, Michael, who were in their mid
60s and Michael suffers from Alzheimer's and Brendan is his
caregiver and they live on a outin the middle of I would say in
(08:06):
the middle of nowhere. That's a city guy talking.
But they live in a very rural area.
And she gets up early and, you know, takes care of the the farm
or the ranch and there's animalsand she works a part time job
and she takes care of her husband.
And Brenda was one of those really solid spine of steel,
(08:29):
kind of just really salty the earth kind of people.
And she was just so impressive. And in talking to her, I
realized, and this applied to another person I'll tell you
about in a second. When the thing when we think of
people who need help, we think of people sometimes who are
helpless. These were really, this is a
really strong, powerful woman who needed a little help and
(08:52):
society's kind of had to step upand help these people.
The other one I was thinking of,which applies the same thing was
that this woman, Connie, who lived in San Diego and had a
difficult childhood, but she wasbecame a nurse and savings,
everything was going OK. And then, you know, she's
getting older and she gets cancer and it wipes her out not
(09:14):
only physically and emotionally,but financially.
And she ends up homeless for 11 months until, you know, grew up,
helped her get some affordable housing.
But again, this woman had the strength and resilience I can
only dream about having. And these people sometimes need
help. And I think society's got a
really one of the takeaways for me from this was that you really
(09:35):
kind of have to step up to the plate that a lot of these, a lot
of people in the country, especially as we live longer and
grow older, you know, become a little bit vulnerable.
And we have to make sure that there are systems and Nets in
place to help these people. And that kind of leads to my
next question, which in the title, it really poses a
powerful question. So what does it mean to thrive
(09:58):
versus merely survive as we age?Well, as I mentioned, we, we do
a lot of, we do some profiles. We did a profile of this
gentleman who was a banker, all of his, you know, stressful job.
But when he retired in his 60s, he became head of a non for
profit and he realized that thiswas best time of his life.
(10:19):
He felt more satisfied. He his relationships were
better. The work meant something to him
that it never did in his career before.
So there's this new chapter, this third chapter in life that
could be really exciting about, you know, you can you can pursue
a passion, You can have a purpose that never existed
before. And, you know, talking to
(10:40):
people, it's just it's kind of arebirth of what can happen in
your later life. And that's at the positive and
inspector. The survive is, you know, more
the people who sometimes becauseof you know, the way they had
their life, you know, ran their life.
But I think a lot of times by the cards that life dealt you,
you know, I think someone of thetakeaways for me for this was
(11:03):
that, you know, it's important to save and take care of your
health as you grow older and, you know, to take full
responsibility for your own well-being.
But at the same time, there are moments where life throws you a
curveball and it's not your fault and you might need a
little help. Yeah, I think that's really
where our society is at right now, where we have to learn to
(11:24):
take a little bit more personal responsibility so that we can
care better for the people that do their best, but then just
stuff happens in their life. And we there are several
different phrases that come up alot on this particular podcast.
We have people talk about the third act had conscious aging
has come up a lot. And we tend to favor talking
(11:45):
about aging with the the four stages of life.
You know, you have the the firststage or the first stage is when
you are the are dependent. You're dependent upon your
parents, you know, the high school to college age and then
your second age being the age when you are developing your
careers, you're having families and you're building up your
finances. And in the third age is really
(12:07):
that most important aspect of life where we were into
retirement, we hopefully are financially stable or healthy
and doing all that. And then the fourth age being
that age of decrepitude and decline, which is what we want
to avoid as much as possible. But like what you're talking
about, we want to be able to care as best as possible for the
people that get into that age and keep it as short as
(12:29):
possible, keep it as healthy as possible.
And so you met Doctor Butler, and would you say was it 1986
while you were working and you're working on the caring for
the Aging society? What was it like collaborating
with him? And what do you think he would
say about the current state of aging in America?
Great question. It was really a pleasure and
(12:52):
honor to work with him. You know, when he walked into a
room or something, there's certain people that just give
off this vibe of they kind of glow a little bit and they're
special when they, you know, they phrase, they suck the
oxygen out of the room. He had that kind of quality.
And he also was really incredibly perceptive.
And I was obviously very impressionable at 30.
I was the idea of aging was kindof not really high on my radar
(13:15):
and I just an example of what kind of made him special for me.
It was a story we were filming inside of retirement community
and it was one of those big sprawling retirement communities
that are pretty, you know, well appointed and pretty terrific.
I mean, they had like their own TV station and their own, you
know, theater group and it was one of those villages and they
(13:36):
had this large room that was a carpentry shop with power tools
and stuff. And he and I kind of walked in
there and I'm thinking, well, asa filmmaker, Oh my God, this
place is great. It couldn't be more visual.
And here are these 80 year old guys over, you know, saws and
they're making furniture. And you could really tell them
these were like master Craftsman.
And it was like, Oh my, this is so great.
(13:58):
And I turned to him. I said, God, isn't this
wonderful? Look at him right and as these
guys still get to do what they do.
And he said yes, but it also makes me sad.
And I said why? And he said there should be a
teenager standing next to each one of them.
Something was in and it's and I it would kind of took me up and
I went, yeah, you're right. And because it's it's that will
(14:19):
die off with them. And the ability to not only see
what is, but to see what should be is such an amazing quality.
And I think he kind of had that in spades, that ability to look
at things and go, it should be this.
It is this now. And it's not just poking at what
is, sort of visualizing what it should be.
(14:40):
And I think that that was a great gift to that.
So how do you, how do you see orthink ageism kind of manifests
itself today in public policy and you have any ideas of what
we can do to kind of dismantle it?
I think overall, generally in society, there is a sense of
young hot, you know, that's the future.
(15:01):
That's, you know, it's all true.And I'm, I'm not negating that,
But I think one of the things that I've learned, you know,
working in the aging space for awhile is that the vitality and
being phrase that vitality, the enthusiasm of youth sometimes
and the knowledge of technology can't replace experience and
(15:22):
wisdom. And, and it's, I think they're
complementary. And I think we're strongest when
we work, you know, across generations and across agents.
And if you were having a team, you know, if you have a team
with different age from different age groups, you're,
you're getting the best of all possible worlds.
And I think it's just those kindof diverse points of view where
(15:43):
we can, and now that I'm, you know, I've just turned 70.
So I'm, I'm kind of, I appreciate what I can learn from
younger people, but I also appreciate what I have to offer
in finding those combinations. I think society doesn't kind of
work that way. I think people right now kind of
they want to stick with their own and I, I think we have to
break that down a little bit, really respect being the power
(16:07):
of being intergeneration. So there any other changes
whether it's policy driven, cultural or community based that
you believe will make the biggest difference in improving
the aging experience in America?Well, I, I, I wish I had the
answer to that. And I'm being perfectly honest.
I don't know what single policy thing I mean, right now because
of the volatility in Washington and all the changes going on,
(16:31):
it's hard to imagine, you know, what it would look like on the
other side. Things are changing and, and I,
I don't know exactly. There are people who, you know,
we've been studying this stuff and if we tell you if this bill
passes, that'll be important. I do know that protecting
Medicare, protecting Medicaid, protecting Social Security is
critical. I mean, I when we were traveling
(16:53):
around, there are people who that they live on that and that
that that gets them through the day.
And if there was any disruption for that, it could be
catastrophic for millions, not 10s of them.
So I know protecting those kind of Nets that we have, but I
wouldn't venture what new policies we should be making
just because that I that's not mine.
(17:13):
I can say, you know, really a need to explore what we can do
culturally and in our communities to kind of combat
ages and just provide communities that are going to be
more accessible to our aging population.
Because not everybody's going tobe able to move to Florida and
go into those retirement communities and, and do all
(17:34):
that. And, you know, the the whole
idea of some is like continuing care retirement communities are
great, but they're expensive and.
One of the things that came up also on when we were filming was
that people want to stay in their own homes as long as
possible and that could be facilitating and that could be
(17:55):
cheaper than a nursing home. But the way our reimbursement
structure works, that's not, it doesn't pay for that.
So that goes back to the idea, you know, we discussing what
pays for, you know what, what wepay for is sometimes not the
most efficient thing. And I agree with you completely.
A lot of this work has to be done on a local level.
(18:15):
Being that woman Connie, who washomeless would save her was a
local, not-for-profit. That's very well established in
the community and they they understand their community and
they're helping people. You've been around this for a
while. I mean, what what national
policies do you think would would really best serve all the
results? I, I think personally, I would
(18:37):
look more at local policy than national because I, I, I don't
trust our national governments to, to do things to really take
care of my neighbor. You know, they're, they're going
to look at the things that are going to most profit
pharmaceutical companies, you know, public hospitals or rather
private hospitals and you know, where people are going to be
(18:59):
able to make money off of this rather than looking at what's
going to be. And, and maybe I'm a very, you
know, cynical person when it comes to how our government
treats the, the overall population, but I really think
it's going to come down to much more local Community Action.
And maybe what the federal government could do would be to
(19:21):
you really better support Statesand local communities that are
trying to improve, you know, thequality of life for our aging
population. You know, I think building our
communities, we should be putting the front porches back
on, you know, because I grew up in the town, you know, in suburb
of Pittsburgh that, you know, wehad close knit communities.
(19:42):
Houses were really closely builtand everything had a front
porch. And I remember as a kid, I mean,
I knew all my friends, grandmothers, because they
either lived in the neighborhoodor, you know, they lived with
the families. And we don't see that anymore.
And, and so I think we really, it's going to come down to what
do we do as individuals? And I teach my students, I have
(20:04):
a pathophysiology and exercise class.
And one of the assignments I have them do is to read the
Tragedy of the Commons. And if you've ever come across
that was written by Garrett Harden back in I think 1968.
And I have them read that and consider how.
All that applies to our present healthcare system.
And you know, we we promoted, I live in Oregon, we just couple
(20:25):
years ago passed a change in ourconstitution that universal
Healthcare is a human right. And to me it's like, OK, you can
say that, but it's not sustainable.
The only thing that's going to be sustainable is to consider
that, you know, universal healthis a universe.
Is it human right? And until we really look at
(20:48):
everybody has a right to be healthy and what do we do to get
those people healthy, I don't think we're going to accomplish
anything because we're just going to have to keep spending
more and more money. I mean, we can say, OK, the
government should fund, you know, nursing care facilities,
which is great. And it's it they should.
But until they start doing things that are going to make
our aging population healthier, you know, give them access to
(21:10):
things that are going to limit diabetes, you know, change food
access, you know, looking at where where are we building fast
food restaurants but not building, you know, grocery
stores. You know, we don't have public
transportation the way we used to where families can get around
and, you know, older people can get to the grocery store and get
(21:31):
the foods that they need. And yeah, so I I really think
it's going to come down to a much more localized individual
action as opposed to expecting the federal government to do
anything. One of the things we do in our
documentary is look at what someinnovative solutions could look
like. What is what, what's the cutting
edge? And for example, we spent some
(21:51):
time in San Francisco and they do two things that are really
interesting and really kind of that kind of out-of-the-box
thinking a little bit. And that was one, they have
what's called an age at San Francisco UCSF Hospital.
They have what's called an age friendly emergency room.
And the idea is that if you're an older adult and you go to the
emergency room, it's really easyto get lost in the shuffle.
(22:14):
And that they're thinking is that if you break your arm in
17, it's very different than breaking your arm in 84 and you
have different problems and different needs.
So when they kind of direct you over to the age friendly
emergency room, it's staffed with geriatricians who
understand, you know, the comorbid, the comorbidities and
(22:35):
would possible cognitive issues and all the things that, you
know, older adults cope with. So that was such an an
interesting and obvious thing oflike, you know what, let's get
those people to the right people.
Another one that they had, whichI thought was great was we went
on, we spent a day with a woman who's a geriatrician and she did
(22:56):
house balls from the hospital and we went and she went to the
homes and we spent some time with her in the film filming a
94 year old woman who had diabetes and she had a leg
amputated. It was very difficult for her to
get around, but having this physician come to her house was
just ideal. It was great.
It really was efficient. And I was interviewing the woman
(23:19):
who ran that and I said it obviously is great, but how do
you afford that? I mean, how many can she do in a
day? And she said maybe 8 house calls
in a day and I go for a physician.
How do you pay for, you know, that doesn't seem to make
dollars and cents. And she said, we did some
studies and we realized we can do 10 house calls for the price
(23:40):
of 1 emergency room. And you get a lot more done with
10 house calls. And it's just that kind of let's
think about things in a different way.
Let's kind of take a step back and say, OK, is there a better,
smarter, more effective way to do this?
And I think, you know, it's sometimes we get obsessed with
how much money are we spending as opposed to what are we
(24:00):
spending it on? And I think that's one of the
lessons that I took away from this is a lot of thought needs
to go into how to spend whatevermoney you're spending in the
most effective. Way, yeah, I think we're in our
healthcare system in this country.
We're much more of the mentalityof treating symptoms and
managing the cost of doing that as opposed to looking at, rather
(24:21):
than spending trillions of dollars on treating, you know,
diseases like diabetes and obesity related diseases and you
know, inactivity related diseases.
Let's spend some money on makingit possible for people to have
access to healthy foods, have access to preventative care, to
exercise and all these things. It's so much cheaper.
(24:42):
But no, we're going to just spend.
Not only cheaper, but from a humanitarian point of view so
much there's a we have some video of Doctor Butler, you know
that we reflected, you know, that he he was intelligent many
times over the years and in one bite, sound bite we have with
him in our healthcare section, he says, you know, frankly,
doctors don't make money. The doctors only make money when
(25:05):
you're sick. Hospitals only make money when
you're sick. There's no incentive, financial
incentive to keep you healthy. And he said that 50 years ago
and it's sort of 40 some years ago.
And it's like we really haven't learned a whole lot.
That's that's what we've fallen short.
We still suffer from that situation.
I. Think one thing has come up in
some previous episodes that we've had is how we could
(25:27):
benefit from, you know, buildingmore of these senior communities
in conjunction with universitiesas well as even like primary
schools, You know, where young kids could benefit from the
experience of the older adults and give them something to do.
But also these college kids thatare maybe studying to become
physicians or physician assistants or physical therapy,
(25:49):
occupational therapy, all these different fields can be working
with this aging population, providing care for them,
learning in the process. And, you know, just that overall
interaction. It's like you said, you know,
when Doctor Butler noticed that,you know, these woodworkers, you
know, should have teenagers nextto them learning.
(26:09):
We're just missing out a tremendous opportunity to bring
our generations together to benefit from everything that
each generation can give the other.
I heard a story on that and I hadn't seen the first amp, but I
heard a story from a friend of mine who works in the field of
there was a nursing home. And what they did was they it
(26:29):
was next to a music school college, and they allowed
several of the students there tolive in their nursing homes for
free. You know, it was free housing,
but they did concerts like twicea week.
And it was like such a win, win for everyone.
And the big great tact for that story was that one of the music
(26:52):
students got married and her maid of honor turned out to be
this 87 year old woman from the nursing home that she got so
close with. And I think that that that idea
of intergenerational is, is so critical.
One thing that came out in the documentary, which was
interesting to me was, and this was from a gentleman named
Fernando Torres Guild talked a lot about this was we don't
(27:15):
think in terms so much of older people or, you know, but think
of aging is a lifelong process. And, and how do we kind of age
well all the time? And instead of divining
ourselves up into groups, you know, that look at it much more
as a continuum of, you know, aging is something we do our
whole lives. And so I, I thought that was a
(27:36):
really interesting way and that a lot of people are using
instead of the word aging, it's much more I found, you know,
common or popular to use the word inaccurate longevity.
Mm, hmm. It says longevity is something
people are comfortable with. Oh yes, everyone wants
longevity, but because of the the stuff we put around the word
(27:57):
agent it, it kind of brings you down where longevity is a much
more optimistic. Yeah.
And I see, you know, the the path that we've taken in using
longevity, you know, it's, it's all about adding years.
I mean you have two perspectivesin there.
You have the adding years, whichwe have done very well in our
healthcare system, getting people to live longer, but not
living well longer. And, you know, from a health
(28:20):
span, I think is one of those areas I think we need to focus a
little bit more on is how do we extend the health span of
individuals. But we also talked on this
podcast a lot about how aging well really begins at
conception, you know, and everything that's going
throughout our lives is leading us to where are we going to be
as we get, you know, more and more years on the on the
(28:41):
calendar. And if we don't start off well,
it's going to be a lot harder toend well.
And you know, you don't get the better finances, you don't have
the better health. I mean, there's so many
different things. And so it's a, it is a
continuum. And I think the language is
going to be one of the biggest challenges for us is what's the
best language to use? Because there's too many people
on YouTube now that are longevity experts that, you
(29:05):
know, it's take this particular supplement and do all this kind
of stuff. And it's like, no, you got to
understand it From my perspective.
It's biomechanical, psychosocial, you know, it's.
Talking to some of the, you know, leaders in this field,
obviously, of course, you're doing this podcast.
So clearly taking better care ofyourself physically, you know,
(29:27):
and we know what the exercise and diet and all those things
can be and financial resources. Clearly it's important to have
enough to live comfortably. What other elements have you
seen successful aging or you know, growing older in a real
positive way? Besides health and finances,
what are the other factors that you found really contribute to a
(29:50):
positive later? Yeah, it's interesting.
I, I had mentioned I teach in pathophysiology and exercise
class and after teaching that for a number of years, I was
always promoting to my students,There's really four things that
you need to do to be healthy andhave longevity, and that's
physical activity and exercise, maintain a healthy body
composition, eat a healthy diet and don't smoke.
(30:11):
And since doing this podcast, we've added really two more to
our, what we call our pillars. And one is sleep hygiene.
And I think that's one thing we really need to focus a little
bit more on. You know, we'll prescribe for
people sleep aids that many of these sleep aids that people are
taking are leading to dementia or they are linked to dementia.
(30:34):
They don't help you sleep effectively.
You're basically just asleep longer.
So sleep hygiene has become one of them.
And then the biggest one that I think surprises me that I've
added it and have grown to emphasize so much more is
purposeful social connection. Yeah, not only just social
connection, because I think it'seasy to say, well, you know,
(30:55):
just get involved in this club or that club or, you know, hang
out with more people. But there's a lot of
opportunities to socialize that are not beneficial or healthy
for us. But if we look at those
purposeful ones, you know, the people that are going to help us
to grow, to maintain our vitality, you know, talking
about having interactions with teenagers, younger children,
(31:17):
college age kids, all of that isI think hugely important to
aging well. And so I'm slowly starting to
see that social connection pieceelevate itself.
And I shouldn't say this is an exercise physiologist, but
starting to see that, you know, elevate itself a little bit
higher than than the exercise piece.
(31:39):
When when you said positive social interactions versus not
positive social, where what's the line?
What's the distinction between the two?
But I said purposeful, you know,so positive and and purposeful,
yeah, leads to the positive versus negative.
But you know, positive is, you know, I think in terms of what's
(31:59):
going to help us grow. And it's a chance to plug my my
friend Jay who took my well centered fitness and recognized
that I always say it in the sameway that uses the acronym SPIES.
So we just simply have shortenedit, the spies now, which is the
spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional and
social. And so I would look at
(32:20):
purposeful, positive being the things that help us to grow in
those ways as opposed to, you know, spiritually growing us
outward where we're more other centered as opposed to growing
us more inward where we're more self-centered, you know,
physical with that, you know, maintaining healthy muscle mass,
maintaining healthy body composition, eating healthy diet
that's going to allow us to function as well as possible,
(32:42):
you know, hormonally, psychologically, you know,
neurologically be able to digestand absorb the foods that we're
eating. And getting an intellectual, you
know, where we're continuing to stimulate the brain and to learn
to grow and to share our knowledge as we're aging.
And then emotional is just, you know, depression is such such a
(33:05):
crisis level in our country. I mean, it's pandemic,
especially in the aging population is, you know, is more
and more loneliness. If we don't keep that connection
with other people, you know, youstart to lose friends as you
age. And what are you replacing those
with? And if you have younger
companionship, younger relationships, you're almost
(33:26):
always kind of turning over those relationship.
Yes, you're losing friends and you're losing family, but you're
also tending to gain from those younger populations.
And that kind of leads then into, you know, the just social
connections in general, but those social connections being
what really feed us spiritually,physically, intellectually and
emotionally. No, it's interesting because.
(33:47):
There's the work you're doing, you know, in terms of helping
yourself to grow older better. What we were trying to do with
this film is find something completely different, which is
kind of looking at it from a societal point of view, the idea
of what is US instead of what did I do to make old age.
But it's what do we do as a society.
(34:08):
And it was an interesting exercise or perspective to kind
of go exploring what do we as a society.
And it's it's very much tied to what we were just saying.
But it's it's an interesting other layer to it.
Yeah. And I don't think.
We can do the, the what can I dobetter if we don't address what
can we do as a community? Because it's easy to sit here
(34:31):
and say, you know, if you want to age well, exercise, eat
right, maintain healthy body composition, don't smoke, you
know, and, and do all these things that I just talked about,
but we don't provide you access to healthy physical activity and
exercise. We don't give access to healthy
foods. You know, one of the things that
drives me insane is when we lookat providing food assistance to,
(34:56):
to people, you know, what do we do?
We give them food stamps or, youknow, cards that they can use,
or they go to food pantries where people have dumped off
their rejected canned goods. And I commented to people
before, I always get frustrated when I see these news programs
where they're talking about these people helping out people
(35:18):
and providing food. And you see the food they're
providing for them right on top.There's always, like, a loaf of
white bread. And you know, some of the worst
foods that we can eat, we're giving the poor rather than
giving them access to the healthiest types of foods.
And, and so it is as much personal responsibility, but is
it's much more of a social responsibility to give people
(35:40):
the access to be able to be socially responsible.
Because there's, I think probably the majority of our
aging population and our unhealthy population are not
people that are stubborn saying that screw you, I'm going to do
what I want, I'm going to eat what I want.
And they, you know, healthcare systems going to take care of
me. I think it's a lot more people
want to be healthy, they want toage well, but they just in their
(36:01):
best efforts really don't have access to it.
And so I think it is a two way, it's a kind of A2 sided coin.
You know, we have a personal responsibility, but we have a
societal responsibility and we can't ignore one or the other.
So have you encountered in, in your kind of research and in the
documentary any countries or models of care?
And then you mentioned San Diegoand a couple other cities in the
(36:22):
United States, but where you believe that the US can learn
from those examples this. Current documentary.
It was just kind of the Americanstory.
I mean, we traveled a lot, but with within the United States.
It's interesting you should mention that though, because one
project I actually worked on with Doctor Butler, we developed
(36:44):
it and it just never came to fruition.
But after that first experience when we worked together back in
the 1980s, really like working. And he said, I want to do a
documentary series about how it's different to age in
different countries. And he even had a title for it.
And he said, we'll call it The Graying of Nations.
And I thought, Oh my God, this is great.
(37:05):
And we spent a lot of time developing it and stuff like
that. This is, you know, back then,
but it never took off as a as a lot of projects never happened.
But Doctor Butler started the International Longevity Society
that was in New York, but so he was very concerned with the
international aspects of aging and what we can learn from other
places. But for this, why survive?
(37:29):
That book was an American story and we kind of kept it within
our borders. That's kind of interesting that
you know. When you look at the Blue Zones,
which has been gaining popularity lately, lately it's
we really only have one in the United States that's considered
classified as a Blue Zone. And I feel like a country is
wealthy and as expansive as the US.
We should be setting the standard for what other
(37:51):
countries are doing. You know, you talk about what's
the healthiest diet? Well, metabolic, you know, the
Mediterranean diet is consideredhealthiest for heart.
Nordic diet is starting to kind of gain some popularity and
they're both pretty similar. But you're not going to hear
anybody say the American diet isthat, you know, the longevity
diet. And you know, so I think we have
a lot to change here to be become more the global standard
(38:15):
for care of our aging population.
I don't know if this little podcast of mine is going to
change anything but everything. Else I mean, you know, I'm, you
know, working in media company minds do change about, you know,
as many as you can. I mean, that's just all you do
and really if you change one. You know, if this documentary
changes one person's mindset, that can have an impact on the
(38:38):
community. That's going to have a ripple
effect that, you know, we just can't imagine, you know, And
it's my. Goal is the guy directed this.
If somebody says, Gee, I never thought about something that way
before, that to me is the success.
Success, it's just to get peopleto think about things and it's
slightly newer, different way. So that's a little bit of
information I didn't have. Yeah.
So. What are what were some of the
(38:59):
challenges or surprises that youencountered during the making of
the documentary one? Interesting surprise was we were
doing this profile of this womannamed Brenda, who was a
caregiver who was out in Wyomingand her husband Michael suffers
from Alzheimer's. And so we flew out to Cheyenne
(39:19):
and drove out to her place with a woman who Amy Shaw, who is a
dementia care specialist who is helping them.
But anyway, we did a really longinterview with Brenda, walked
around her place, lifted her animals and she was amazed.
She got Real Salt of the earth, terrifically and inspiring.
And we're packing up our gear and we're ready to go.
(39:41):
And she said, can I ask you a favor?
And I said sure. And she said, would you
interview my husband, Michael? And I was trying to be sensitive
to the fact that he had Alzheimer's and I didn't want to
put him in an uncomfortable position.
And I said, well, of course we would.
But I thought you said before they kind of didn't want us to
do that. And she said, oh, no, you know,
(40:02):
good days, bad days. So they turned out to be a good
day and he really wants to do it.
And she said, you don't even have to use the foot, Just
please do the interview with them and make them happen.
And I said, well, I haven't prepared any questions, but
sure, I would sit down and do it.
And I ended up speaking with Michael for over an hour.
And it's clearly, I think. Among the most poignant moments
in the film where he was at a level of he knew he was, he was
(40:25):
slipping and he was starting to,but you would see the slide and
you'd see the recognition of theslide at the same time.
And it was really moving to see somebody coping with all.
And between the two of them talking about the situation,
that was a surprise. And you know when you're where
you go out and you make a film, some things you think, oh, this
(40:47):
is going to be great and it justdoesn't pan out.
Other things, you know that she do.
I am turned out way more powerful than I had ever hooked.
I'm looking forward to. The people watching and
listening to this podcast, kind of tuning out from my podcast
for a little bit to tune into PBS and actually watch this this
episode, because I think it'll be really rewarding and it it
(41:08):
should have a significant impacton our our society.
So I'm looking forward. I appreciate that that thought.
So it'll be on PBS after May 1st.
Different stations will have different day and times.
But you think there is a aging in America?
Survivor Thrive, all one word website dot com website.
(41:30):
That's one of the places you canget the information about where
to view it. Yeah, we'll be sure to link
that. To in the description notes so
that people can kind of keep on top of it because it is I
understand it's going to be released more gradually across
the country. So it might not be May 1st.
So it's going to be airing in your local PBS station.
But if you pay attention, you can find it and get to watch it.
(41:52):
So so I'm going to ask you a question that we ask of all of
our guests on the podcast and nobody gets to escape it.
I even had a young lady from University of Michigan, it's a
pre Med student that is the ambassador for care Yaya, which
is actually a really interestingprogram where they they connect
college students, particularly those that are going in the
(42:12):
fields like medicine, nursing and so on, with families that
are in kind of that sandwich generation where they have
younger kids, but also might have, you know, older parents or
grandparents that kind of take care of.
And so they provide care for these older adults and, and just
her experience. It was really cool, but she was
(42:34):
my youngest. So I, I asked her, I think she's
like, was she like maybe 2021? But I'm going to ask you, what
are you doing personally to age?Well, my first thing that popped
into my. Mind, I'm not sure it's the most
important, but I, I do a lot of puzzles and I do, you know,
Wordle and Sudoku and I'm kind of addicted to the New York
(42:55):
Times puzzle stuff. And I literally do that on a
daily basis and I find it fun, but I think it's probably also
pretty good for me. And the biggest thing I tried to
do is stay curious, you know, constantly finding things to
wonder about and joy out there and Gee, how does that work?
And why are they doing this? And oh then what a great
(43:17):
experience that could be. Trying to keep my sense of
curiosity and wonder looking forward.
It kind of comes with. The the job of being a
documentary, right? Very much I'm.
Not sure which kind of feel the same.
Way on my end with doing this podcast.
It just keeps my curiosity alive.
I keep learning. I mean, I've learned more in the
last 3 1/2 years with this podcast that I just I take to my
(43:39):
students and I catch myself, youknow, as I'm teaching exercise
science to a lot of athletes andpeople don't want to go into
sports training someone to go into physical therapy, but
teaching them from really a longevity health span
perspective. And I catch myself because I do
this podcast. We tend to say, you know, as I
(44:00):
just asked you, what are you doing personally to age?
Well, you know, so I find myselfin my lectures like, and when I
go to say age, well, I have to put that little pause in there
and give my catch phrase. But yeah, I'm the same way.
I love the New York Times sometimes games in the morning.
I have a couple students from about a year ago that got me
(44:21):
hooked on that to where I have to do Wordle every day and then
do Sudoku and, you know, keep myscore of how, how many days now
I've, I think I've only missed like maybe 3 or 4 Wordle puzzles
in that year's time. So by the way, I had a big.
Moment 2 days ago, my first Wordle.
(44:42):
I've got it on one guest. I'm jealous I haven't.
Gotten that yet? It was like just typed.
In a word. And it went congratulations.
And the word of I said that or little bot said that.
Go buy a lottery ticket. Today's your day.
Yeah, I think I'd rather. Spend my really good luck on a
lottery ticket than getting wordon one, but it's could do a lot
(45:04):
more with you know winning a few$1,000,000 than I can with that
yeah I got it in one but I use the same words.
I wanted to ask you one thing. I.
Wanted to follow up if I can, and I know it's your podcast,
but please indulge me for a second.
You talked about language, aging, elderly, seniors.
What, what, what words do you find you're comfortable with and
(45:24):
the people you're talking with are comfortable with?
To describe that process, we didan episode.
On that, because my, my wife brought to my point how kind of
saying senior all the time and elderly, you know how, how
offensive it is to people. It's, it's challenging because,
you know, especially being a, a teacher and we we talked about,
you know, older adults and things again.
(45:47):
So so what's an older adult to you all?
And then they kind of hesitate alittle bit because they know
I'm, I'm going to be 62 the end of this month.
And they, they, they really don't know what to say because
you just go by a number. It does, it's kind of sometimes
confusing. So I, I tend to prefer just kind
of like older adult. I don't like senior citizen.
(46:11):
I don't like elderly because again, elderly to me implies
frailty. And when we refer to somebody
just based on looking at the number of 1, you know, the date
that they were born and call them elderly, I think, I think
there's people that are in their40s that are far older than me.
And, you know, there are probably people in their 80s
(46:33):
that are younger than me. And so I just kind of, you know,
I, I haven't really settled on, on the terminology yet.
I I, I just kind of, you know, it's like this is the, the age
I'm at, you know, and, you know,you can quantify it is, you
know, I mean, middle age even that sounds, you know, really
negative when we talk about somebody being middle age, you
(46:55):
know, in our generation, that would be somebody probably in
their 50s, you know, and now I'm62.
I feel like, well, that should be middle age because my goal
was to hit 120. Yeah, but middle age?
You're only halfway done. It should be kind of positive,
you'd think. Yeah, I mean middle.
Age, that's where you, you know,that's where the freedom hits,
right? You, you hopefully are
(47:16):
financially stable, you are retired.
Maybe I don't know that I'm going to retire anytime soon is
and sure you're not planning on retiring anytime soon.
You keep going. And I think that's kind of the
benefit of being in some of the fields like we're in where we
can continue as long as we want.I mean, I'm, I'm going to teach
as long as I'm capable and competent and, you know, I have
(47:39):
no desire to retire because whatam I going to do in retirement?
You know, do this podcast. Yeah.
So if this starts really making a lot of money for me, yeah,
I'll do the full time with this.And I'll keep doing it until,
you know, time cease to exist orI'm so wealthy that I don't need
to work. I can just travel.
But yeah, I don't know that I really have a great term for
that. And, you know, it's sometimes it
(48:00):
depends on the population you'redealing with.
But I think when you use any terminology, it has to be
defined in the context of how you're using it.
You know, so from a researcher, you know, you start looking at,
you know, young, you know, they break things into age groups and
even that it's like, at what point do you decide to call
(48:21):
population elderly or older adult?
You know, an older adult can be a college age kid.
You know, when you're, it's relative to a high school age
kid or, you know, preschooler. And so I don't know, I just like
to kind of label people based based on their age.
And so, you know, you could say 80 year olds or you know, 90
(48:41):
year olds rather than older adults, because I'm sure you
probably encountered in the documentary, there are people
who are much older than us that are still very alert, very spry,
very fit, and they're in great shape.
And then there's people much younger that are really
struggling health wise. And so I think there's also one
(49:02):
of the things. That I in doing this for a
while, you know, working in the field, not to, if somebody isn't
spry or physically able, if someone's in a wheelchair or
somebody has certain physical disabilities, that doesn't mean
their mental and emotional abilities are handicapped as
well. And I, I think that one of the
(49:24):
pieces of ageism that we have inour society is we'll look at
somebody who is possibly older and frail.
That doesn't mean that they don't have something really
significant to offer. And I think that that's one of
the things that I I, you know, Ikind of noticed myself of
appreciating people more, regardless of, you know, they
(49:44):
may look old and frail, but they, they have a lot on.
Yeah, we just at my. My church couple Sundays ago,
they had a birthday party for anybody that was 90 and over.
They do it every year. And it was one woman there that
was 100. And I would not have guessed her
to be 100. You know, she's obviously in her
90s and some of the 90 year olds, it's like, no, there's no
(50:07):
way you're 90. But she's 100 years old.
And she was telling me that her father lived to be 106 and he at
93, went to the North Pole and he had written his memoir.
He'd done all kind of stuff in his life.
He wrote a memoir 87 and had to write a second addition to it or
(50:28):
volume to because he did so muchafter 9087 that it he needed to
write another book. And that to me is just fantastic
aging. Yes, that that's the.
Definition of it, yeah, but you're right.
I mean we. We look at people that outside
of their own control are maybe on the outside not looking as
(50:50):
healthy and spry and to be agingwell.
But there's so much else going on inside.
There's so much other experienceand stuff that they still bring
to the table that we tend to ignore just because of the
outside appearance. And I think we see that in the
young as well. I mean, even just if you're
dealing with, I don't like the term disabilities as much
because I think of it more as limitations, because we all have
(51:12):
our limitations. And just because we can't do
what is considered to be the norm doesn't mean that there's
no other stuff going on. And, you know, you interact with
somebody who maybe has a severe,there's something like maybe
severe cerebral palsy, you know,you go up to them and they can't
communicate well, but their mindis still super, super sharp.
(51:34):
It just takes them a little bit longer to get that information
out. Sometimes we're just not patient
enough to let people, you know, shine through their outside
appearance. I recall talking with that.
Professor, who is that? He's dealt with a disability all
his life. And we were talking about that.
I was interviewing and said one way to think about it is you
were just temporarily able that eventually, you know, the body
(51:59):
does break down. You know, as much as you try to
take care of yourself and so he's going, you're just
temporarily able to this time. And that when a disability might
hit you, it could be devastating.
I've grown up with it. I'm going to be prepared for it.
And it's like, wow, again, that a whole idea of looking at
things from a completely different angle I find so
(52:19):
fascinating. So with your decades of
experience. In this field, what gives you
hope about the future of aging in America?
I think there's people out therewho.
Are really smart and kind and considerate and I'm doing video
and films. I've interviewed a bunch of them
and I find that very encouraging.
I think that there's there is a people who are so completely
(52:40):
dedicated to this endeavor of making the world better for
older adults. Will it happen as quickly as I
hope? Probably not, but I I do believe
it will happen so with. Your experience with Doctor
Butler and doing the documentaries and the work
you've done over these many years, how has your views of
aging changed over the years, especially through the lens of
(53:03):
this film? I think I kind of grew up.
With the notion of aging almost equals decline.
And I, I, I really realized in all my work in aging, you know,
the last several years, quite a few years, decades even, you
know, making films about it and videos.
But that's, that's just a, a myth and a misconception that I,
(53:25):
I firmly had. You know, it's young as great,
old as bad. And I've learned how long I was
to to make that assumption. And that's not just me aging.
That's just me getting wiser. Right.
Which is aging. Yeah.
It's. Aging is wisdom, yes.
So is there anything we miss talking about with the
documentary that you want to make sure that the viewers and
(53:45):
listeners hear? No, I think you did a really
good. Job and I think we covered
everything and again I just the only thing we didn't talk about
it is that one of the things we really want to do with this
documentary is to really honor Doctor Butler's legacy.
He is a major figure in Americansocial movements.
(54:05):
I mean he had done so much. He was such a pioneer and he
isn't recognized quite as much as some other pioneers in other
fields and your other areas. And one of the things we really
want to do is to make sure help spread the word that there once
behind that there was this guy and he really had a vision for
what it meant. And that there's generations of
(54:26):
people working in gerontology and aging geriatrics that he
gave birth to that. And I, it was a pleasure to kind
of help amplify his message. Yeah.
You asked me earlier about. Words that I would use, one word
did. Gets used a.
Lot and you just kind of use it that kind of bothers me a bit is
the use of geriatrics. You know, as we talk about
(54:48):
aging, because, you know, we, wetend to associate geriatrics,
what geriatrics is basically by definition, you know, the, you
know, declining physical capabilities and health and all
those types of things in this, you know, the study of that.
And so we tend to think of geriatric population, just the
older population, but the geriatric population is at 4th
(55:11):
age group, you know, and I thinkwe need, as we've been talking
about to kind of change our mindset on what it means to be
aging and understand that, you know, the older population has
many, many things that they bring to the table that we need
to recognize. And that just because we're
getting older doesn't mean that we are.
I mean, we're declining, yes, but the rate of decline doesn't
(55:33):
have to be as pronounced as it often is.
And we need to do what we can toslow that whole process.
Let me offer a slightly different way of.
Thinking about that and that is nobody would say a negative
thing about Pediatrics. True and and jury.
You know, Pediatrics is just a specialty of medicine that helps
(55:55):
younger people. You know, very young geriatrist
is just a specialty of medicine that helps older people and yet
there's a negative connotation to it.
But nobody would say, oh, I'm a pediatrician and they have
someone say, I'm sorry, Oh, thatmust be depressing dealing with
kids all day long. You know, I think that's kind of
one of those little inherent ageist things that we kind of
deal with in our society. I guess that's probably kind of
(56:17):
how it's evolved. Too.
I mean, maybe maybe it has devolved from that.
Maybe it originally when they talked geriatrics, it was the
more negative connotation. But you're right.
I think we need to put a positive twist on the study of
geriatrics and and look at it isaging well, it's cardiology,
It's it's. Just a different, it's a
(56:38):
different specialty of medicine that, you know, focuses on
things that happen later in life.
And it's, you're right, we do put a kind of a negative spin on
that, but we should and it just kind of occurred to me.
You know, the pediatrician is really one of the few that are,
you know, the few areas of medicine that are considered the
(56:59):
positive area. You know, when you're working
with a pediatrician, you're getting kids healthy.
You're you're working with, you know, young people.
But then you look at cardiologists, they're working
with people with diseased heart.You know, urologists are working
with people with disease, kidneys, or you know, the list
goes on. And it's always a negative and,
and I think that's the problem in our healthcare system ways
(57:20):
we're focused on treating the symptoms as opposed to, you
know, preventative care. And so gerontologists and most
of the ones I know are really much more focused on successful
aging as opposed to dealing withthe problems that come with
aging. And so I think that's the
mindset that hopefully your documentary is going to help to
(57:41):
change a little bit. That would be great.
That would be really. Wonderful.
Well, I really appreciate. The work that you're doing, and
it certainly supports the work that I'm trying to do here, and
hopefully my work supports your work and maybe together we can
help to get the American population to age well.
(58:11):
Thank you for listening, hope you benefited.
From today's podcast and until next time, keep aging well.
Welcome to the Aging Well Podcast, where we explore the
science, stories and strategies behind living a longer,
healthier, and more purposeful life.
In this episode, I am joined by film maker Neil Steinberg,
director of a powerful new PBS documentary, Aging in America,
Survive or Thrive. Backed by the John A Hartford
Foundation and premiering May 1st, the film takes a hard look
(00:32):
at the structural, economic, andethical challenges of aging in
the United States. From homelessness and economic
insecurity to flaws in our nursing home system, Aging in
America asks an urgent question.As our population grows older,
will we choose to merely help? People survive.
Or create a society where they can truly thrive.
Neil brings more than 4 decades of experience in the aging
(00:54):
space, including a long time connection to Doctor Robert
Butler, the pioneering gerontologist who coined the
term ageism and whose ground breaking book, Why Survive Being
Old in America inspired the documentary.
We discussed Doctor Butler's legacy, the stories behind
making the film, and what real solutions might look like for
the future of aging policy in America.
(01:15):
Stay tuned as we explore how compassionate care, smarter
policy, and a new vision of longevity might shape the path
forward and what it truly means to age well in America.
Neil, welcome to the Aging Well podcast.
If you want, just tell us a little bit about yourself and
what inspired you to create Aging in America, Survive or
Thrive. So I've been working in the film
(01:38):
and television field for my entire career and I've done, you
know, fiction and non fiction and sports and documentaries and
kind of been across the board. What inspired this particular
project actually goes back to early in my career when I was
like 30 years old. I had great opportunity to work
on a project called Caring for an Aging Society and it was a 20
(02:00):
part video series. And one of the people involved
was a gentleman by the name of Doctor Robert Butler, who was
truly a a pioneer in the field of aging.
And he hosted the series along with Ken Dykewald, who is also
the executive producer of it. Doctor Butler was quite
legendary and he wrote a book back in 1975 called the Why
(02:22):
Survive Being Old in America, and that book won the Pulitzer
Prize. So we did that.
I did that thing. I was in my 30s.
It was great. Then many decades later, I
bumped into a woman. I was working again with
Handeichwald, but bumped into a woman, Terry Fulmer, who is also
involved in that project. And Terry is now the president
(02:43):
of the John A Hartford Foundation, which is a
foundation, wonderful people that are dedicated to helping
the lives of older adults. And she and I started talking
about doing a documentary together for PBS.
And she said, you know, Doctor Butler, who passed away about a
dozen years ago, his legacy has never been honored the way it
(03:03):
should. So let's do a documentary to
honor back to Butler's legacy. And what evolved was we took his
book Why Survive, which was thislandmark in the area of
dermatology and geriatrics. And let's look 50 years later,
how are we doing, You know, based on what he said we needed
to do and how far have we come and how far do we still have to
(03:25):
go? So that was kind of the impetus
for this documentary. The documentary tackles some
pretty difficult truths about the aging infrastructure in the
United States. What do you think are the most?
Urgent policies, policy issues that we face right now.
I, I think one of the themes that came up a lot in the
(03:45):
filming of this, and I'm not a geriatrician or gerontologist or
an expert in anything. You know, what I do is kind of
make movies. And so I, I'm, but in listening
to people who are experts and have traveling the country
talking to the best minds in thefield, couple things emerge.
One big theme is that as a society we we spend a lot of
(04:07):
money to take care of older people in terms of healthcare
and all that stuff and in other social services.
But the universal consensus was we spend them in the wrong
places. Our society is really big on
spending money to fix problems. We don't spend money to prevent
problems and which could be way more cost effective, not only
(04:29):
financially but from the human standpoint obviously.
So that was kind of one of the big things that came across.
Another big thing that I learnedwas Doctor Butler claimed a word
back in 1965. Ages never existed before.
And she was the one who kind of first used that word and, you
know, popularized it. And one of the things we looked
(04:51):
at is does ageism still live, you know, in our modern world?
Or if we are, we past that? And the answer was clearly,
we're better than we were back in 1975.
But there are still remnants of it.
There are still in certain industries, in certain
attitudes, ageism still does exist.
And in our documentary we would show like commercials that were
(05:13):
ages that were, you know, eithermaking fun of older people and
kind of showing them in a goofy way or the incredible pressure
to, you know, not have wrinkles and not look like you're old.
And that whole industry that kind of says young is good, old
is bad. You know, that's still permeates
(05:33):
our society. So those were a couple of the
areas that we wanted to address.Other topics that we address in
our documentary include long term care in nursing homes.
That's kind of a very volatile area right now where part of it
is the COVID kind of exposed. Those are the best run places
(05:54):
and stuff like that. We kind of get into how
ownership affects the quality ofcare in nursing home and that
most importantly, what are the options for nursing homes?
They're they're financially not feasible with an aging
population. You know, there's just so many
more of us that we really have to rethink the system.
Yeah. I think I just heard recently
(06:15):
that is it this year that half of the population in the US will
be over 65. I.
Think this was a year that we hit that or something?
There was a year that we hit that, I don't know when that I
think that's a ways away. I think this year was, if I'm
not mistaken, and this is the year that more people are over
the age of 65 than under 18. OK, maybe that's what I heard.
(06:38):
Yeah. And I think and I I would double
check those bets before you did that.
Somewhere in there there's this.I mean, there's a lot of us old
folks in the country right now. And, and what's really
interesting about that is, and that's one of the things that
I've kind of been working in theaging field from the filmmaking
point of view, telling the story, is that this is a brand
new story. Throughout history there, there
(06:59):
were old people, but very few ofthem.
And so now we've got a whole, you know, generation, the whole
society here of people that havea lot of people north of 60 or
65 or 85, and that we've never had that before.
And it, it provides a lot of opportunities and challenges.
I mean, it's, it's great that you can, you know, experience
(07:21):
your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, your great, great
grandchildren. And how much wisdom can you
gather over that many years? It, it's really something to be
celebrated. But at the same time, there's
burdens on it. I mean, it's, it's if if you're
not in good health and you don'thave financial security, those
later years can be really challenging and difficult.
(07:42):
So was there any particular story or interview in the film
that left the most lasting impact on you personally?
There was a couple, one particularly was we visited a
couple of in Wyoming, Brendan, Michael, who were in their mid
60s and Michael suffers from Alzheimer's and Brendan is his
caregiver and they live on a outin the middle of I would say in
(08:06):
the middle of nowhere. That's a city guy talking.
But they live in a very rural area.
And she gets up early and, you know, takes care of the the farm
or the ranch and there's animalsand she works a part time job
and she takes care of her husband.
And Brenda was one of those really solid spine of steel,
(08:29):
kind of just really salty the earth kind of people.
And she was just so impressive. And in talking to her, I
realized, and this applied to another person I'll tell you
about in a second. When the thing when we think of
people who need help, we think of people sometimes who are
helpless. These were really, this is a
really strong, powerful woman who needed a little help and
(08:52):
society's kind of had to step upand help these people.
The other one I was thinking of,which applies the same thing was
that this woman, Connie, who lived in San Diego and had a
difficult childhood, but she wasbecame a nurse and savings,
everything was going OK. And then, you know, she's
getting older and she gets cancer and it wipes her out not
(09:14):
only physically and emotionally,but financially.
And she ends up homeless for 11 months until, you know, grew up,
helped her get some affordable housing.
But again, this woman had the strength and resilience I can
only dream about having. And these people sometimes need
help. And I think society's got a
really one of the takeaways for me from this was that you really
(09:35):
kind of have to step up to the plate that a lot of these, a lot
of people in the country, especially as we live longer and
grow older, you know, become a little bit vulnerable.
And we have to make sure that there are systems and Nets in
place to help these people. And that kind of leads to my
next question, which in the title, it really poses a
powerful question. So what does it mean to thrive
(09:58):
versus merely survive as we age?Well, as I mentioned, we, we do
a lot of, we do some profiles. We did a profile of this
gentleman who was a banker, all of his, you know, stressful job.
But when he retired in his 60s, he became head of a non for
profit and he realized that thiswas best time of his life.
(10:19):
He felt more satisfied. He his relationships were
better. The work meant something to him
that it never did in his career before.
So there's this new chapter, this third chapter in life that
could be really exciting about, you know, you can you can pursue
a passion, You can have a purpose that never existed
before. And, you know, talking to
(10:40):
people, it's just it's kind of arebirth of what can happen in
your later life. And that's at the positive and
inspector. The survive is, you know, more
the people who sometimes becauseof you know, the way they had
their life, you know, ran their life.
But I think a lot of times by the cards that life dealt you,
you know, I think someone of thetakeaways for me for this was
(11:03):
that, you know, it's important to save and take care of your
health as you grow older and, you know, to take full
responsibility for your own well-being.
But at the same time, there are moments where life throws you a
curveball and it's not your fault and you might need a
little help. Yeah, I think that's really
where our society is at right now, where we have to learn to
(11:24):
take a little bit more personal responsibility so that we can
care better for the people that do their best, but then just
stuff happens in their life. And we there are several
different phrases that come up alot on this particular podcast.
We have people talk about the third act had conscious aging
has come up a lot. And we tend to favor talking
(11:45):
about aging with the the four stages of life.
You know, you have the the firststage or the first stage is when
you are the are dependent. You're dependent upon your
parents, you know, the high school to college age and then
your second age being the age when you are developing your
careers, you're having families and you're building up your
finances. And in the third age is really
(12:07):
that most important aspect of life where we were into
retirement, we hopefully are financially stable or healthy
and doing all that. And then the fourth age being
that age of decrepitude and decline, which is what we want
to avoid as much as possible. But like what you're talking
about, we want to be able to care as best as possible for the
people that get into that age and keep it as short as
(12:29):
possible, keep it as healthy as possible.
And so you met Doctor Butler, and would you say was it 1986
while you were working and you're working on the caring for
the Aging society? What was it like collaborating
with him? And what do you think he would
say about the current state of aging in America?
Great question. It was really a pleasure and
(12:52):
honor to work with him. You know, when he walked into a
room or something, there's certain people that just give
off this vibe of they kind of glow a little bit and they're
special when they, you know, they phrase, they suck the
oxygen out of the room. He had that kind of quality.
And he also was really incredibly perceptive.
And I was obviously very impressionable at 30.
I was the idea of aging was kindof not really high on my radar
(13:15):
and I just an example of what kind of made him special for me.
It was a story we were filming inside of retirement community
and it was one of those big sprawling retirement communities
that are pretty, you know, well appointed and pretty terrific.
I mean, they had like their own TV station and their own, you
know, theater group and it was one of those villages and they
(13:36):
had this large room that was a carpentry shop with power tools
and stuff. And he and I kind of walked in
there and I'm thinking, well, asa filmmaker, Oh my God, this
place is great. It couldn't be more visual.
And here are these 80 year old guys over, you know, saws and
they're making furniture. And you could really tell them
these were like master Craftsman.
And it was like, Oh my, this is so great.
(13:58):
And I turned to him. I said, God, isn't this
wonderful? Look at him right and as these
guys still get to do what they do.
And he said yes, but it also makes me sad.
And I said why? And he said there should be a
teenager standing next to each one of them.
Something was in and it's and I it would kind of took me up and
I went, yeah, you're right. And because it's it's that will
(14:19):
die off with them. And the ability to not only see
what is, but to see what should be is such an amazing quality.
And I think he kind of had that in spades, that ability to look
at things and go, it should be this.
It is this now. And it's not just poking at what
is, sort of visualizing what it should be.
(14:40):
And I think that that was a great gift to that.
So how do you, how do you see orthink ageism kind of manifests
itself today in public policy and you have any ideas of what
we can do to kind of dismantle it?
I think overall, generally in society, there is a sense of
young hot, you know, that's the future.
(15:01):
That's, you know, it's all true.And I'm, I'm not negating that,
But I think one of the things that I've learned, you know,
working in the aging space for awhile is that the vitality and
being phrase that vitality, the enthusiasm of youth sometimes
and the knowledge of technology can't replace experience and
(15:22):
wisdom. And, and it's, I think they're
complementary. And I think we're strongest when
we work, you know, across generations and across agents.
And if you were having a team, you know, if you have a team
with different age from different age groups, you're,
you're getting the best of all possible worlds.
And I think it's just those kindof diverse points of view where
(15:43):
we can, and now that I'm, you know, I've just turned 70.
So I'm, I'm kind of, I appreciate what I can learn from
younger people, but I also appreciate what I have to offer
in finding those combinations. I think society doesn't kind of
work that way. I think people right now kind of
they want to stick with their own and I, I think we have to
break that down a little bit, really respect being the power
(16:07):
of being intergeneration. So there any other changes
whether it's policy driven, cultural or community based that
you believe will make the biggest difference in improving
the aging experience in America?Well, I, I, I wish I had the
answer to that. And I'm being perfectly honest.
I don't know what single policy thing I mean, right now because
of the volatility in Washington and all the changes going on,
(16:31):
it's hard to imagine, you know, what it would look like on the
other side. Things are changing and, and I,
I don't know exactly. There are people who, you know,
we've been studying this stuff and if we tell you if this bill
passes, that'll be important. I do know that protecting
Medicare, protecting Medicaid, protecting Social Security is
critical. I mean, I when we were traveling
(16:53):
around, there are people who that they live on that and that
that that gets them through the day.
And if there was any disruption for that, it could be
catastrophic for millions, not 10s of them.
So I know protecting those kind of Nets that we have, but I
wouldn't venture what new policies we should be making
just because that I that's not mine.
(17:13):
I can say, you know, really a need to explore what we can do
culturally and in our communities to kind of combat
ages and just provide communities that are going to be
more accessible to our aging population.
Because not everybody's going tobe able to move to Florida and
go into those retirement communities and, and do all
(17:34):
that. And, you know, the the whole
idea of some is like continuing care retirement communities are
great, but they're expensive and.
One of the things that came up also on when we were filming was
that people want to stay in their own homes as long as
possible and that could be facilitating and that could be
(17:55):
cheaper than a nursing home. But the way our reimbursement
structure works, that's not, it doesn't pay for that.
So that goes back to the idea, you know, we discussing what
pays for, you know what, what wepay for is sometimes not the
most efficient thing. And I agree with you completely.
A lot of this work has to be done on a local level.
(18:15):
Being that woman Connie, who washomeless would save her was a
local, not-for-profit. That's very well established in
the community and they they understand their community and
they're helping people. You've been around this for a
while. I mean, what what national
policies do you think would would really best serve all the
results? I, I think personally, I would
(18:37):
look more at local policy than national because I, I, I don't
trust our national governments to, to do things to really take
care of my neighbor. You know, they're, they're going
to look at the things that are going to most profit
pharmaceutical companies, you know, public hospitals or rather
private hospitals and you know, where people are going to be
(18:59):
able to make money off of this rather than looking at what's
going to be. And, and maybe I'm a very, you
know, cynical person when it comes to how our government
treats the, the overall population, but I really think
it's going to come down to much more local Community Action.
And maybe what the federal government could do would be to
(19:21):
you really better support Statesand local communities that are
trying to improve, you know, thequality of life for our aging
population. You know, I think building our
communities, we should be putting the front porches back
on, you know, because I grew up in the town, you know, in suburb
of Pittsburgh that, you know, wehad close knit communities.
(19:42):
Houses were really closely builtand everything had a front
porch. And I remember as a kid, I mean,
I knew all my friends, grandmothers, because they
either lived in the neighborhoodor, you know, they lived with
the families. And we don't see that anymore.
And, and so I think we really, it's going to come down to what
do we do as individuals? And I teach my students, I have
(20:04):
a pathophysiology and exercise class.
And one of the assignments I have them do is to read the
Tragedy of the Commons. And if you've ever come across
that was written by Garrett Harden back in I think 1968.
And I have them read that and consider how.
All that applies to our present healthcare system.
And you know, we we promoted, I live in Oregon, we just couple
(20:25):
years ago passed a change in ourconstitution that universal
Healthcare is a human right. And to me it's like, OK, you can
say that, but it's not sustainable.
The only thing that's going to be sustainable is to consider
that, you know, universal healthis a universe.
Is it human right? And until we really look at
(20:48):
everybody has a right to be healthy and what do we do to get
those people healthy, I don't think we're going to accomplish
anything because we're just going to have to keep spending
more and more money. I mean, we can say, OK, the
government should fund, you know, nursing care facilities,
which is great. And it's it they should.
But until they start doing things that are going to make
our aging population healthier, you know, give them access to
(21:10):
things that are going to limit diabetes, you know, change food
access, you know, looking at where where are we building fast
food restaurants but not building, you know, grocery
stores. You know, we don't have public
transportation the way we used to where families can get around
and, you know, older people can get to the grocery store and get
(21:31):
the foods that they need. And yeah, so I I really think
it's going to come down to a much more localized individual
action as opposed to expecting the federal government to do
anything. One of the things we do in our
documentary is look at what someinnovative solutions could look
like. What is what, what's the cutting
edge? And for example, we spent some
(21:51):
time in San Francisco and they do two things that are really
interesting and really kind of that kind of out-of-the-box
thinking a little bit. And that was one, they have
what's called an age at San Francisco UCSF Hospital.
They have what's called an age friendly emergency room.
And the idea is that if you're an older adult and you go to the
emergency room, it's really easyto get lost in the shuffle.
(22:14):
And that they're thinking is that if you break your arm in
17, it's very different than breaking your arm in 84 and you
have different problems and different needs.
So when they kind of direct you over to the age friendly
emergency room, it's staffed with geriatricians who
understand, you know, the comorbid, the comorbidities and
(22:35):
would possible cognitive issues and all the things that, you
know, older adults cope with. So that was such an an
interesting and obvious thing oflike, you know what, let's get
those people to the right people.
Another one that they had, whichI thought was great was we went
on, we spent a day with a woman who's a geriatrician and she did
(22:56):
house balls from the hospital and we went and she went to the
homes and we spent some time with her in the film filming a
94 year old woman who had diabetes and she had a leg
amputated. It was very difficult for her to
get around, but having this physician come to her house was
just ideal. It was great.
It really was efficient. And I was interviewing the woman
(23:19):
who ran that and I said it obviously is great, but how do
you afford that? I mean, how many can she do in a
day? And she said maybe 8 house calls
in a day and I go for a physician.
How do you pay for, you know, that doesn't seem to make
dollars and cents. And she said, we did some
studies and we realized we can do 10 house calls for the price
(23:40):
of 1 emergency room. And you get a lot more done with
10 house calls. And it's just that kind of let's
think about things in a different way.
Let's kind of take a step back and say, OK, is there a better,
smarter, more effective way to do this?
And I think, you know, it's sometimes we get obsessed with
how much money are we spending as opposed to what are we
(24:00):
spending it on? And I think that's one of the
lessons that I took away from this is a lot of thought needs
to go into how to spend whatevermoney you're spending in the
most effective. Way, yeah, I think we're in our
healthcare system in this country.
We're much more of the mentalityof treating symptoms and
managing the cost of doing that as opposed to looking at, rather
(24:21):
than spending trillions of dollars on treating, you know,
diseases like diabetes and obesity related diseases and you
know, inactivity related diseases.
Let's spend some money on makingit possible for people to have
access to healthy foods, have access to preventative care, to
exercise and all these things. It's so much cheaper.
(24:42):
But no, we're going to just spend.
Not only cheaper, but from a humanitarian point of view so
much there's a we have some video of Doctor Butler, you know
that we reflected, you know, that he he was intelligent many
times over the years and in one bite, sound bite we have with
him in our healthcare section, he says, you know, frankly,
doctors don't make money. The doctors only make money when
(25:05):
you're sick. Hospitals only make money when
you're sick. There's no incentive, financial
incentive to keep you healthy. And he said that 50 years ago
and it's sort of 40 some years ago.
And it's like we really haven't learned a whole lot.
That's that's what we've fallen short.
We still suffer from that situation.
I. Think one thing has come up in
some previous episodes that we've had is how we could
(25:27):
benefit from, you know, buildingmore of these senior communities
in conjunction with universitiesas well as even like primary
schools, You know, where young kids could benefit from the
experience of the older adults and give them something to do.
But also these college kids thatare maybe studying to become
physicians or physician assistants or physical therapy,
(25:49):
occupational therapy, all these different fields can be working
with this aging population, providing care for them,
learning in the process. And, you know, just that overall
interaction. It's like you said, you know,
when Doctor Butler noticed that,you know, these woodworkers, you
know, should have teenagers nextto them learning.
(26:09):
We're just missing out a tremendous opportunity to bring
our generations together to benefit from everything that
each generation can give the other.
I heard a story on that and I hadn't seen the first amp, but I
heard a story from a friend of mine who works in the field of
there was a nursing home. And what they did was they it
(26:29):
was next to a music school college, and they allowed
several of the students there tolive in their nursing homes for
free. You know, it was free housing,
but they did concerts like twicea week.
And it was like such a win, win for everyone.
And the big great tact for that story was that one of the music
(26:52):
students got married and her maid of honor turned out to be
this 87 year old woman from the nursing home that she got so
close with. And I think that that that idea
of intergenerational is, is so critical.
One thing that came out in the documentary, which was
interesting to me was, and this was from a gentleman named
Fernando Torres Guild talked a lot about this was we don't
(27:15):
think in terms so much of older people or, you know, but think
of aging is a lifelong process. And, and how do we kind of age
well all the time? And instead of divining
ourselves up into groups, you know, that look at it much more
as a continuum of, you know, aging is something we do our
whole lives. And so I, I thought that was a
(27:36):
really interesting way and that a lot of people are using
instead of the word aging, it's much more I found, you know,
common or popular to use the word inaccurate longevity.
Mm, hmm. It says longevity is something
people are comfortable with. Oh yes, everyone wants
longevity, but because of the the stuff we put around the word
(27:57):
agent it, it kind of brings you down where longevity is a much
more optimistic. Yeah.
And I see, you know, the the path that we've taken in using
longevity, you know, it's, it's all about adding years.
I mean you have two perspectivesin there.
You have the adding years, whichwe have done very well in our
healthcare system, getting people to live longer, but not
living well longer. And, you know, from a health
(28:20):
span, I think is one of those areas I think we need to focus a
little bit more on is how do we extend the health span of
individuals. But we also talked on this
podcast a lot about how aging well really begins at
conception, you know, and everything that's going
throughout our lives is leading us to where are we going to be
as we get, you know, more and more years on the on the
(28:41):
calendar. And if we don't start off well,
it's going to be a lot harder toend well.
And you know, you don't get the better finances, you don't have
the better health. I mean, there's so many
different things. And so it's a, it is a
continuum. And I think the language is
going to be one of the biggest challenges for us is what's the
best language to use? Because there's too many people
on YouTube now that are longevity experts that, you
(29:05):
know, it's take this particular supplement and do all this kind
of stuff. And it's like, no, you got to
understand it From my perspective.
It's biomechanical, psychosocial, you know, it's.
Talking to some of the, you know, leaders in this field,
obviously, of course, you're doing this podcast.
So clearly taking better care ofyourself physically, you know,
(29:27):
and we know what the exercise and diet and all those things
can be and financial resources. Clearly it's important to have
enough to live comfortably. What other elements have you
seen successful aging or you know, growing older in a real
positive way? Besides health and finances,
what are the other factors that you found really contribute to a
(29:50):
positive later? Yeah, it's interesting.
I, I had mentioned I teach in pathophysiology and exercise
class and after teaching that for a number of years, I was
always promoting to my students,There's really four things that
you need to do to be healthy andhave longevity, and that's
physical activity and exercise, maintain a healthy body
composition, eat a healthy diet and don't smoke.
(30:11):
And since doing this podcast, we've added really two more to
our, what we call our pillars. And one is sleep hygiene.
And I think that's one thing we really need to focus a little
bit more on. You know, we'll prescribe for
people sleep aids that many of these sleep aids that people are
taking are leading to dementia or they are linked to dementia.
(30:34):
They don't help you sleep effectively.
You're basically just asleep longer.
So sleep hygiene has become one of them.
And then the biggest one that I think surprises me that I've
added it and have grown to emphasize so much more is
purposeful social connection. Yeah, not only just social
connection, because I think it'seasy to say, well, you know,
(30:55):
just get involved in this club or that club or, you know, hang
out with more people. But there's a lot of
opportunities to socialize that are not beneficial or healthy
for us. But if we look at those
purposeful ones, you know, the people that are going to help us
to grow, to maintain our vitality, you know, talking
about having interactions with teenagers, younger children,
(31:17):
college age kids, all of that isI think hugely important to
aging well. And so I'm slowly starting to
see that social connection pieceelevate itself.
And I shouldn't say this is an exercise physiologist, but
starting to see that, you know, elevate itself a little bit
higher than than the exercise piece.
(31:39):
When when you said positive social interactions versus not
positive social, where what's the line?
What's the distinction between the two?
But I said purposeful, you know,so positive and and purposeful,
yeah, leads to the positive versus negative.
But you know, positive is, you know, I think in terms of what's
(31:59):
going to help us grow. And it's a chance to plug my my
friend Jay who took my well centered fitness and recognized
that I always say it in the sameway that uses the acronym SPIES.
So we just simply have shortenedit, the spies now, which is the
spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional and
social. And so I would look at
(32:20):
purposeful, positive being the things that help us to grow in
those ways as opposed to, you know, spiritually growing us
outward where we're more other centered as opposed to growing
us more inward where we're more self-centered, you know,
physical with that, you know, maintaining healthy muscle mass,
maintaining healthy body composition, eating healthy diet
that's going to allow us to function as well as possible,
(32:42):
you know, hormonally, psychologically, you know,
neurologically be able to digestand absorb the foods that we're
eating. And getting an intellectual, you
know, where we're continuing to stimulate the brain and to learn
to grow and to share our knowledge as we're aging.
And then emotional is just, you know, depression is such such a
(33:05):
crisis level in our country. I mean, it's pandemic,
especially in the aging population is, you know, is more
and more loneliness. If we don't keep that connection
with other people, you know, youstart to lose friends as you
age. And what are you replacing those
with? And if you have younger
companionship, younger relationships, you're almost
(33:26):
always kind of turning over those relationship.
Yes, you're losing friends and you're losing family, but you're
also tending to gain from those younger populations.
And that kind of leads then into, you know, the just social
connections in general, but those social connections being
what really feed us spiritually,physically, intellectually and
emotionally. No, it's interesting because.
(33:47):
There's the work you're doing, you know, in terms of helping
yourself to grow older better. What we were trying to do with
this film is find something completely different, which is
kind of looking at it from a societal point of view, the idea
of what is US instead of what did I do to make old age.
But it's what do we do as a society.
(34:08):
And it was an interesting exercise or perspective to kind
of go exploring what do we as a society.
And it's it's very much tied to what we were just saying.
But it's it's an interesting other layer to it.
Yeah. And I don't think.
We can do the, the what can I dobetter if we don't address what
can we do as a community? Because it's easy to sit here
(34:31):
and say, you know, if you want to age well, exercise, eat
right, maintain healthy body composition, don't smoke, you
know, and, and do all these things that I just talked about,
but we don't provide you access to healthy physical activity and
exercise. We don't give access to healthy
foods. You know, one of the things that
drives me insane is when we lookat providing food assistance to,
(34:56):
to people, you know, what do we do?
We give them food stamps or, youknow, cards that they can use,
or they go to food pantries where people have dumped off
their rejected canned goods. And I commented to people
before, I always get frustrated when I see these news programs
where they're talking about these people helping out people
(35:18):
and providing food. And you see the food they're
providing for them right on top.There's always, like, a loaf of
white bread. And you know, some of the worst
foods that we can eat, we're giving the poor rather than
giving them access to the healthiest types of foods.
And, and so it is as much personal responsibility, but is
it's much more of a social responsibility to give people
(35:40):
the access to be able to be socially responsible.
Because there's, I think probably the majority of our
aging population and our unhealthy population are not
people that are stubborn saying that screw you, I'm going to do
what I want, I'm going to eat what I want.
And they, you know, healthcare systems going to take care of
me. I think it's a lot more people
want to be healthy, they want toage well, but they just in their
(36:01):
best efforts really don't have access to it.
And so I think it is a two way, it's a kind of A2 sided coin.
You know, we have a personal responsibility, but we have a
societal responsibility and we can't ignore one or the other.
So have you encountered in, in your kind of research and in the
documentary any countries or models of care?
And then you mentioned San Diegoand a couple other cities in the
(36:22):
United States, but where you believe that the US can learn
from those examples this. Current documentary.
It was just kind of the Americanstory.
I mean, we traveled a lot, but with within the United States.
It's interesting you should mention that though, because one
project I actually worked on with Doctor Butler, we developed
(36:44):
it and it just never came to fruition.
But after that first experience when we worked together back in
the 1980s, really like working. And he said, I want to do a
documentary series about how it's different to age in
different countries. And he even had a title for it.
And he said, we'll call it The Graying of Nations.
And I thought, Oh my God, this is great.
(37:05):
And we spent a lot of time developing it and stuff like
that. This is, you know, back then,
but it never took off as a as a lot of projects never happened.
But Doctor Butler started the International Longevity Society
that was in New York, but so he was very concerned with the
international aspects of aging and what we can learn from other
places. But for this, why survive?
(37:29):
That book was an American story and we kind of kept it within
our borders. That's kind of interesting that
you know. When you look at the Blue Zones,
which has been gaining popularity lately, lately it's
we really only have one in the United States that's considered
classified as a Blue Zone. And I feel like a country is
wealthy and as expansive as the US.
We should be setting the standard for what other
(37:51):
countries are doing. You know, you talk about what's
the healthiest diet? Well, metabolic, you know, the
Mediterranean diet is consideredhealthiest for heart.
Nordic diet is starting to kind of gain some popularity and
they're both pretty similar. But you're not going to hear
anybody say the American diet isthat, you know, the longevity
diet. And you know, so I think we have
a lot to change here to be become more the global standard
(38:15):
for care of our aging population.
I don't know if this little podcast of mine is going to
change anything but everything. Else I mean, you know, I'm, you
know, working in media company minds do change about, you know,
as many as you can. I mean, that's just all you do
and really if you change one. You know, if this documentary
changes one person's mindset, that can have an impact on the
(38:38):
community. That's going to have a ripple
effect that, you know, we just can't imagine, you know, And
it's my. Goal is the guy directed this.
If somebody says, Gee, I never thought about something that way
before, that to me is the success.
Success, it's just to get peopleto think about things and it's
slightly newer, different way. So that's a little bit of
information I didn't have. Yeah.
So. What are what were some of the
(38:59):
challenges or surprises that youencountered during the making of
the documentary one? Interesting surprise was we were
doing this profile of this womannamed Brenda, who was a
caregiver who was out in Wyomingand her husband Michael suffers
from Alzheimer's. And so we flew out to Cheyenne
(39:19):
and drove out to her place with a woman who Amy Shaw, who is a
dementia care specialist who is helping them.
But anyway, we did a really longinterview with Brenda, walked
around her place, lifted her animals and she was amazed.
She got Real Salt of the earth, terrifically and inspiring.
And we're packing up our gear and we're ready to go.
(39:41):
And she said, can I ask you a favor?
And I said sure. And she said, would you
interview my husband, Michael? And I was trying to be sensitive
to the fact that he had Alzheimer's and I didn't want to
put him in an uncomfortable position.
And I said, well, of course we would.
But I thought you said before they kind of didn't want us to
do that. And she said, oh, no, you know,
(40:02):
good days, bad days. So they turned out to be a good
day and he really wants to do it.
And she said, you don't even have to use the foot, Just
please do the interview with them and make them happen.
And I said, well, I haven't prepared any questions, but
sure, I would sit down and do it.
And I ended up speaking with Michael for over an hour.
And it's clearly, I think. Among the most poignant moments
in the film where he was at a level of he knew he was, he was
(40:25):
slipping and he was starting to,but you would see the slide and
you'd see the recognition of theslide at the same time.
And it was really moving to see somebody coping with all.
And between the two of them talking about the situation,
that was a surprise. And you know when you're where
you go out and you make a film, some things you think, oh, this
(40:47):
is going to be great and it justdoesn't pan out.
Other things, you know that she do.
I am turned out way more powerful than I had ever hooked.
I'm looking forward to. The people watching and
listening to this podcast, kind of tuning out from my podcast
for a little bit to tune into PBS and actually watch this this
episode, because I think it'll be really rewarding and it it
(41:08):
should have a significant impacton our our society.
So I'm looking forward. I appreciate that that thought.
So it'll be on PBS after May 1st.
Different stations will have different day and times.
But you think there is a aging in America?
Survivor Thrive, all one word website dot com website.
(41:30):
That's one of the places you canget the information about where
to view it. Yeah, we'll be sure to link
that. To in the description notes so
that people can kind of keep on top of it because it is I
understand it's going to be released more gradually across
the country. So it might not be May 1st.
So it's going to be airing in your local PBS station.
But if you pay attention, you can find it and get to watch it.
(41:52):
So so I'm going to ask you a question that we ask of all of
our guests on the podcast and nobody gets to escape it.
I even had a young lady from University of Michigan, it's a
pre Med student that is the ambassador for care Yaya, which
is actually a really interestingprogram where they they connect
college students, particularly those that are going in the
(42:12):
fields like medicine, nursing and so on, with families that
are in kind of that sandwich generation where they have
younger kids, but also might have, you know, older parents or
grandparents that kind of take care of.
And so they provide care for these older adults and, and just
her experience. It was really cool, but she was
(42:34):
my youngest. So I, I asked her, I think she's
like, was she like maybe 2021? But I'm going to ask you, what
are you doing personally to age?Well, my first thing that popped
into my. Mind, I'm not sure it's the most
important, but I, I do a lot of puzzles and I do, you know,
Wordle and Sudoku and I'm kind of addicted to the New York
(42:55):
Times puzzle stuff. And I literally do that on a
daily basis and I find it fun, but I think it's probably also
pretty good for me. And the biggest thing I tried to
do is stay curious, you know, constantly finding things to
wonder about and joy out there and Gee, how does that work?
And why are they doing this? And oh then what a great
(43:17):
experience that could be. Trying to keep my sense of
curiosity and wonder looking forward.
It kind of comes with. The the job of being a
documentary, right? Very much I'm.
Not sure which kind of feel the same.
Way on my end with doing this podcast.
It just keeps my curiosity alive.
I keep learning. I mean, I've learned more in the
last 3 1/2 years with this podcast that I just I take to my
(43:39):
students and I catch myself, youknow, as I'm teaching exercise
science to a lot of athletes andpeople don't want to go into
sports training someone to go into physical therapy, but
teaching them from really a longevity health span
perspective. And I catch myself because I do
this podcast. We tend to say, you know, as I
(44:00):
just asked you, what are you doing personally to age?
Well, you know, so I find myselfin my lectures like, and when I
go to say age, well, I have to put that little pause in there
and give my catch phrase. But yeah, I'm the same way.
I love the New York Times sometimes games in the morning.
I have a couple students from about a year ago that got me
(44:21):
hooked on that to where I have to do Wordle every day and then
do Sudoku and, you know, keep myscore of how, how many days now
I've, I think I've only missed like maybe 3 or 4 Wordle puzzles
in that year's time. So by the way, I had a big.
Moment 2 days ago, my first Wordle.
(44:42):
I've got it on one guest. I'm jealous I haven't.
Gotten that yet? It was like just typed.
In a word. And it went congratulations.
And the word of I said that or little bot said that.
Go buy a lottery ticket. Today's your day.
Yeah, I think I'd rather. Spend my really good luck on a
lottery ticket than getting wordon one, but it's could do a lot
(45:04):
more with you know winning a few$1,000,000 than I can with that
yeah I got it in one but I use the same words.
I wanted to ask you one thing. I.
Wanted to follow up if I can, and I know it's your podcast,
but please indulge me for a second.
You talked about language, aging, elderly, seniors.
What, what, what words do you find you're comfortable with and
(45:24):
the people you're talking with are comfortable with?
To describe that process, we didan episode.
On that, because my, my wife brought to my point how kind of
saying senior all the time and elderly, you know how, how
offensive it is to people. It's, it's challenging because,
you know, especially being a, a teacher and we we talked about,
you know, older adults and things again.
(45:47):
So so what's an older adult to you all?
And then they kind of hesitate alittle bit because they know
I'm, I'm going to be 62 the end of this month.
And they, they, they really don't know what to say because
you just go by a number. It does, it's kind of sometimes
confusing. So I, I tend to prefer just kind
of like older adult. I don't like senior citizen.
(46:11):
I don't like elderly because again, elderly to me implies
frailty. And when we refer to somebody
just based on looking at the number of 1, you know, the date
that they were born and call them elderly, I think, I think
there's people that are in their40s that are far older than me.
And, you know, there are probably people in their 80s
(46:33):
that are younger than me. And so I just kind of, you know,
I, I haven't really settled on, on the terminology yet.
I I, I just kind of, you know, it's like this is the, the age
I'm at, you know, and, you know,you can quantify it is, you
know, I mean, middle age even that sounds, you know, really
negative when we talk about somebody being middle age, you
(46:55):
know, in our generation, that would be somebody probably in
their 50s, you know, and now I'm62.
I feel like, well, that should be middle age because my goal
was to hit 120. Yeah, but middle age?
You're only halfway done. It should be kind of positive,
you'd think. Yeah, I mean middle.
Age, that's where you, you know,that's where the freedom hits,
right? You, you hopefully are
(47:16):
financially stable, you are retired.
Maybe I don't know that I'm going to retire anytime soon is
and sure you're not planning on retiring anytime soon.
You keep going. And I think that's kind of the
benefit of being in some of the fields like we're in where we
can continue as long as we want.I mean, I'm, I'm going to teach
as long as I'm capable and competent and, you know, I have
(47:39):
no desire to retire because whatam I going to do in retirement?
You know, do this podcast. Yeah.
So if this starts really making a lot of money for me, yeah,
I'll do the full time with this.And I'll keep doing it until,
you know, time cease to exist orI'm so wealthy that I don't need
to work. I can just travel.
But yeah, I don't know that I really have a great term for
that. And, you know, it's sometimes it
(48:00):
depends on the population you'redealing with.
But I think when you use any terminology, it has to be
defined in the context of how you're using it.
You know, so from a researcher, you know, you start looking at,
you know, young, you know, they break things into age groups and
even that it's like, at what point do you decide to call
(48:21):
population elderly or older adult?
You know, an older adult can be a college age kid.
You know, when you're, it's relative to a high school age
kid or, you know, preschooler. And so I don't know, I just like
to kind of label people based based on their age.
And so, you know, you could say 80 year olds or you know, 90
(48:41):
year olds rather than older adults, because I'm sure you
probably encountered in the documentary, there are people
who are much older than us that are still very alert, very spry,
very fit, and they're in great shape.
And then there's people much younger that are really
struggling health wise. And so I think there's also one
(49:02):
of the things. That I in doing this for a
while, you know, working in the field, not to, if somebody isn't
spry or physically able, if someone's in a wheelchair or
somebody has certain physical disabilities, that doesn't mean
their mental and emotional abilities are handicapped as
well. And I, I think that one of the
(49:24):
pieces of ageism that we have inour society is we'll look at
somebody who is possibly older and frail.
That doesn't mean that they don't have something really
significant to offer. And I think that that's one of
the things that I I, you know, Ikind of noticed myself of
appreciating people more, regardless of, you know, they
(49:44):
may look old and frail, but they, they have a lot on.
Yeah, we just at my. My church couple Sundays ago,
they had a birthday party for anybody that was 90 and over.
They do it every year. And it was one woman there that
was 100. And I would not have guessed her
to be 100. You know, she's obviously in her
90s and some of the 90 year olds, it's like, no, there's no
(50:07):
way you're 90. But she's 100 years old.
And she was telling me that her father lived to be 106 and he at
93, went to the North Pole and he had written his memoir.
He'd done all kind of stuff in his life.
He wrote a memoir 87 and had to write a second addition to it or
(50:28):
volume to because he did so muchafter 9087 that it he needed to
write another book. And that to me is just fantastic
aging. Yes, that that's the.
Definition of it, yeah, but you're right.
I mean we. We look at people that outside
of their own control are maybe on the outside not looking as
(50:50):
healthy and spry and to be agingwell.
But there's so much else going on inside.
There's so much other experienceand stuff that they still bring
to the table that we tend to ignore just because of the
outside appearance. And I think we see that in the
young as well. I mean, even just if you're
dealing with, I don't like the term disabilities as much
because I think of it more as limitations, because we all have
(51:12):
our limitations. And just because we can't do
what is considered to be the norm doesn't mean that there's
no other stuff going on. And, you know, you interact with
somebody who maybe has a severe,there's something like maybe
severe cerebral palsy, you know,you go up to them and they can't
communicate well, but their mindis still super, super sharp.
(51:34):
It just takes them a little bit longer to get that information
out. Sometimes we're just not patient
enough to let people, you know, shine through their outside
appearance. I recall talking with that.
Professor, who is that? He's dealt with a disability all
his life. And we were talking about that.
I was interviewing and said one way to think about it is you
were just temporarily able that eventually, you know, the body
(51:59):
does break down. You know, as much as you try to
take care of yourself and so he's going, you're just
temporarily able to this time. And that when a disability might
hit you, it could be devastating.
I've grown up with it. I'm going to be prepared for it.
And it's like, wow, again, that a whole idea of looking at
things from a completely different angle I find so
(52:19):
fascinating. So with your decades of
experience. In this field, what gives you
hope about the future of aging in America?
I think there's people out therewho.
Are really smart and kind and considerate and I'm doing video
and films. I've interviewed a bunch of them
and I find that very encouraging.
I think that there's there is a people who are so completely
(52:40):
dedicated to this endeavor of making the world better for
older adults. Will it happen as quickly as I
hope? Probably not, but I I do believe
it will happen so with. Your experience with Doctor
Butler and doing the documentaries and the work
you've done over these many years, how has your views of
aging changed over the years, especially through the lens of
(53:03):
this film? I think I kind of grew up.
With the notion of aging almost equals decline.
And I, I, I really realized in all my work in aging, you know,
the last several years, quite a few years, decades even, you
know, making films about it and videos.
But that's, that's just a, a myth and a misconception that I,
(53:25):
I firmly had. You know, it's young as great,
old as bad. And I've learned how long I was
to to make that assumption. And that's not just me aging.
That's just me getting wiser. Right.
Which is aging. Yeah.
It's. Aging is wisdom, yes.
So is there anything we miss talking about with the
documentary that you want to make sure that the viewers and
(53:45):
listeners hear? No, I think you did a really
good. Job and I think we covered
everything and again I just the only thing we didn't talk about
it is that one of the things we really want to do with this
documentary is to really honor Doctor Butler's legacy.
He is a major figure in Americansocial movements.
(54:05):
I mean he had done so much. He was such a pioneer and he
isn't recognized quite as much as some other pioneers in other
fields and your other areas. And one of the things we really
want to do is to make sure help spread the word that there once
behind that there was this guy and he really had a vision for
what it meant. And that there's generations of
(54:26):
people working in gerontology and aging geriatrics that he
gave birth to that. And I, it was a pleasure to kind
of help amplify his message. Yeah.
You asked me earlier about. Words that I would use, one word
did. Gets used a.
Lot and you just kind of use it that kind of bothers me a bit is
the use of geriatrics. You know, as we talk about
(54:48):
aging, because, you know, we, wetend to associate geriatrics,
what geriatrics is basically by definition, you know, the, you
know, declining physical capabilities and health and all
those types of things in this, you know, the study of that.
And so we tend to think of geriatric population, just the
older population, but the geriatric population is at 4th
(55:11):
age group, you know, and I thinkwe need, as we've been talking
about to kind of change our mindset on what it means to be
aging and understand that, you know, the older population has
many, many things that they bring to the table that we need
to recognize. And that just because we're
getting older doesn't mean that we are.
I mean, we're declining, yes, but the rate of decline doesn't
(55:33):
have to be as pronounced as it often is.
And we need to do what we can toslow that whole process.
Let me offer a slightly different way of.
Thinking about that and that is nobody would say a negative
thing about Pediatrics. True and and jury.
You know, Pediatrics is just a specialty of medicine that helps
(55:55):
younger people. You know, very young geriatrist
is just a specialty of medicine that helps older people and yet
there's a negative connotation to it.
But nobody would say, oh, I'm a pediatrician and they have
someone say, I'm sorry, Oh, thatmust be depressing dealing with
kids all day long. You know, I think that's kind of
one of those little inherent ageist things that we kind of
deal with in our society. I guess that's probably kind of
(56:17):
how it's evolved. Too.
I mean, maybe maybe it has devolved from that.
Maybe it originally when they talked geriatrics, it was the
more negative connotation. But you're right.
I think we need to put a positive twist on the study of
geriatrics and and look at it isaging well, it's cardiology,
It's it's. Just a different, it's a
(56:38):
different specialty of medicine that, you know, focuses on
things that happen later in life.
And it's, you're right, we do put a kind of a negative spin on
that, but we should and it just kind of occurred to me.
You know, the pediatrician is really one of the few that are,
you know, the few areas of medicine that are considered the
(56:59):
positive area. You know, when you're working
with a pediatrician, you're getting kids healthy.
You're you're working with, you know, young people.
But then you look at cardiologists, they're working
with people with diseased heart.You know, urologists are working
with people with disease, kidneys, or you know, the list
goes on. And it's always a negative and,
and I think that's the problem in our healthcare system ways
(57:20):
we're focused on treating the symptoms as opposed to, you
know, preventative care. And so gerontologists and most
of the ones I know are really much more focused on successful
aging as opposed to dealing withthe problems that come with
aging. And so I think that's the
mindset that hopefully your documentary is going to help to
(57:41):
change a little bit. That would be great.
That would be really. Wonderful.
Well, I really appreciate. The work that you're doing, and
it certainly supports the work that I'm trying to do here, and
hopefully my work supports your work and maybe together we can
help to get the American population to age well.
(58:11):
Thank you for listening, hope you benefited.
From today's podcast and until next time, keep aging well.
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