BIG ARTS’ Talking Points speaker to discuss aging
Yes, your children, neighbors, pastor, lawyer and doctor are all getting older. And of course, so are you.
Nobody escapes the aging process and that is the point, said Kathy Black, professor of aging studies at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee and speaker for BIG ARTS’ “Talking Points” series on Feb. 12.
“We are all stakeholders in an aging society,” Black said in an interview about her talk, which will be titled “Planning for Y(our) Longevity.”
And there’s no doubt we are an aging society. There are more people on the planet than ever, and we are living longer. What we need to be doing is planning for the 100-year life, Black said. But as a society, we have not really being doing that.
“If we considered the 100-year lifespan in every program, policy and service we have, I wouldn’t need to talk about this. But everything has been designed for a younger society,” for younger eyes and ears and physical abilities, she said.
Black has been the principal investigator of over a dozen grants. Her articles have been published in more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. She is on the editorial boards of International Journal of Ageing & Society, Research on Aging, Social Work and Mental Health, and the Journal of Social Service Research and holds multiple degrees in social work and gerontology, including a doctorate.
Black has spent 40 years working with older adults and their families in multiple settings, and has learned that there are things all of us can do to accommodate the people who are older today as well as those who will be older soon. Simple things like printing menus in a larger font can help, so can getting to know our neighbors, since more older people are living by themselves. It particularly important in Florida, where about two out of three people moved to the state from somewhere else, Black said.
“So we don’t have those ties of growing up next to someone for 40 years,” she said. “We did a study and found the biggest proportion of people were counting on their neighbors to help them. And we asked, ‘But do your neighbors know that?’ No, they don’t, we found out.”
Another finding she shares in some of her presentations actually cause people to gasp.
“Some demographers are predicting that 50 percent of children born today are likely to live to be 100,” Black said.
And everyone wants to do that in the healthiest way. While there are wild cards of environment and genetics, we can all optimize our chances of staying vital and healthy both mentally and physically.
“The latest information is, lifelong learning as well as good cardio blood flow to the brain and general fitness are the big lifestyle factors we can all do that can make a difference,” Black said.