What's the Best Diet and Exercise for People Over 50?

May 27 is National Senior Health & Fitness Day. And joining me today to talk about healthy aging is Dr. Christine Rosenblum.

Dr. Rosenbloom is a registered dietician and a nutrition professor emerita of Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she taught and held various administrative positions over her 30-year university career. Since retiring, she's written a book called Food and Fitness After 50 along with Dr. Bob Murray and she continues to blog about healthy aging at ChrisRosenbloom.com.

We've all heard the jokes about 50 being the new 30, and 70 being the new 50, and so on. And as we age, I think it's natural that what we think of as “old” continues to mean “just a little bit older than us.”

But at the same time I do see some truth to this. The Baby Boomer and the Gen X generations seem to be aging differently than our parents and grandparents did. We have different expectations of what it means to get older, and to a certain extent, we are experiencing middle- and old-age differently. Why do you think this is? Have we gotten better at aging, or is this just a state of mind or attitude?

I think it's a combination of many things. One of those is that we are living longer. When you're 65, your life expectancy is another 20 years. So I think as people realize, “I've got a lot more years ahead of me," they're thinking about "What can I do with fitness? What can I do with my diet? What can I do to stay healthy?” 

We're not ready to just sit down and start rocking on the porch anymore when we retire from our careers. You've launched a whole new career after your 30-year university career, right? 

Instead of giving somebody a rocking chair when they retire, give them a great pair of running or walking shoes.

Absolutely. And I saw one author say instead of giving somebody a rocking chair when they retire, give them a great pair of running or walking shoes, help them get active, give them a Y membership, things to keep us really active.

Are there parts of it that we might be getting wrong out of our unwillingness to go gently into old age? Are we more likely to be injuring ourselves or over-exercising in this quest to stay young?

I don't see that too much. I think people...

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