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Star-studded Boomer-Con hits San Diego

AARP’s 3-day expo reflects new definition of aging

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For America’s baby boom generation, the times they are — once again — a changin’.

Having spent more than a half century shaping everything from the political landscape to the workplace and pop culture, boomers are now redefining what it means to age.

Healthier, wealthier and more active than any previous age group, the rock ‘n’ roll (and disco and punk) generation is too busy volunteering, learning a new sport or launching an encore career to go quietly into retirement.

“Boomers have always been about changing everything and they’re once again rewriting the rules,” said Ann Clurman, executive vice president of The Futures Company and an expert on generational trends, “They are fending off limits rather than giving in to them, still believing in the possibility of transformation,” Clurman said.

“Boomers are going to make it impossible to ever treat aging the same as it was in the past.”

Illustrating this new face of aging — and the clout of the 78-million strong demographic — is this week’s AARP Ideas@50+ expo. The three-day event at the San Diego Convention Center will feature movie, television and music stars, plus an “American Idol”-like competition, complete with a recording contract as a prize. Its schedule is so full of A-list appearances — among them Martha Stewart, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Arianna Huffington — the expo might as well be dubbed Boomer-Con.

Of the 8,000 attendees expected, about 750 of them will spend Thursday volunteering at various organizations throughout San Diego County for a Community Day of Service, a staple of AARP conventions. (An early-morning kickoff event features former NFL great and AARP “Men’s Life Ambassador” Dan Marino.)

Jason Weinstein, AARP director of national events, said the expo’s lectures, panels and more intimate salon sessions cover the four areas baby boomers are most interested in — or concerned about: health and wellness, technology and innovation, travel and lifestyle, and money and work.

“Retirement is but a word anymore,” Weinstein. “Today you ‘recareer,’ you start to re-imagine your life. … People are saying, ‘hey, you know I’ve worn this hat my entire life but I’ve always wanted to wear this other hat,’ whether it’s a getting a dog for the first time, having three generations living in a house and learning algebra so you can help the grandkids with their homework, or saying, ‘I’ve been a schoolteacher my whole life, but you know, I’ve always wanted to open a bakery.’ ”

Huffington, whose AARP keynote speech on Saturday is entitled “Thriving After 50,” changed her hat at 55, when she launched the online news site The Huffington Post in 2005.

“There were naysayers, even among my friends, who said I already had a successful career as an author, why did I need this risk,” she said in an interview from her New York office. “But that’s part of the joy of being older and wiser and not looking over your shoulder and waiting to see if people agree with you, to validate you.”

Boomers are at an age when they’re clearer about who they are what they want, Huffington said.

“We longer have what I call that obnoxious roommate in our head that questions us, that criticizes us, which is so incredibly draining.”

Dr. Dilip Jeste, associate dean for Healthy Aging and Senior Care and director of the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at UCSD, said the sheer size of the aging baby boom population will impact every aspect of society, from health care to finance, housing transportation, lifestyle and communities.

Jeste said 10,000 Americans reach the age of 65 every day, a milestone that will continue through 2030. At the same time, 11,000 to 12,000 babies are currently born each day, but that number will decline significantly by 2030.

“Throughout the history of the world, there have been many more children and young adult than older people,” Jeste said. “In a few years, there will be more people over 65 than children under 15. It will affect everything we do.”

For example, not only will more housing for seniors be needed, the kind of housing will change dramatically, Jeste said.

“In the past, the usual notion of housing for older and maybe disabled people was single story houses. Now, as baby boomers are getting older, they want places where they can be physically active, that has a gym to work out.”

Dr. Travis Stork, co-star of the daytime TV show, "The Doctors," also said today’s 50-plus population are working hard to take age in a new direction.

“The trend for boomers isn’t how long I live, it’s ‘hey, I want to live well,’ ” said Stork, who’ll appear with fellow M.D.s Jennifer Ashton and Ian Smith in a Friday AARP session called, “Health & Wellness from A to Z with The Doctors.”

“Today, 50 is the new 40,” Stork said. “We’re truly seeing functional behavior and qualitative turning back the clock.”

And yet, Jeste said, among boomers’ many paradoxes are the studies that show that while they are more likely to exercise, eat healthy foods and take vitamins, the generation also suffers from more mental illness, anxiety disorders, substance abuse and depression than those in other older generations.

“They are more pessimistic about the future, their own their children’s and America’s,” Jeste said. “Maybe they are less confident that successive generations will be as successful as they were.”

On the flip side, one thing baby boomers are optimistic about is that they don’t feel old. “They define old age not at 65, but 72 and on average they feel nine years younger than they are,” Jeste said, citing a study done by Pew Research.

Clurman, the New York-based generational trends expert, said boomers engage in age nullification, not allowing themselves to be limited by chronological age. That’s why they still to go to rock concerts to continue to search to find the meaning of life, a quest they started on decades ago.

“Boomers have a youthful mindset, and I don’t mean acting young and stupid, it’s not about wearing your daughter’s jeans,” Clurman said. “It’s about exploration and possibility, rather than giving up.”

With previous generations, it was a sign of maturity, of growing up, to be “kind of finished” in your older age, to be satisfied in where you were and where you’ve been, she said.

Boomers can’t get that satisfaction.

“(They) have never known a time when they didn’t matter,” Clurman said. “Traditionally, older people, happily or unhappily, found themselves on the sidelines. Boomers want to be in ‘middle agelessness.’

Boomers know the power belongs to those in their prime and that’s where they want to stay.”

Ideas@50+

When: Thursday through Saturday

Where: San Diego Convention Center, 111 West Harbor Dr., downtown San Diego

Tickets: $25 for AARP members; $35 for nonmembers. Click here for the complete schedule and to register online. To register by phone, call (800) 650-6839.

BOOMERS BY THE NUMBERS

• 78 million: Number of people born between 1946 and 1964.

• 2011: Year the first Boomers turned 65.

• 2014: Year the last Boomers turned 50.

• $15-$30 trillion: Estimated amount of wealth Boomers are expected to transfer to their heirs.

• 10,000: Number of Americans who turn 65 every day

• 72: Age that Boomers define as old

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