What defines whether a person is old or not? There is a chronological parameter, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), which defines the elderly as those over 60 years of age. There are also biological criteria of mobility and strength that help to delimit youth and old age. Regardless of the marker, this population grows at a fast pace in Brazil and in the world – and they no longer want to be seen as “the inactive ones”. There are already more than 30 million Brazilians over the age of 60 who are building a new way of aging. That’s the theme of the episode Aging – My Time is Todayof the Reporting Paths.
“In the past, when I was a child, we had between 4% and 5% of the population over 60 years old, and when I got there, I lived little. Today we have 15% and by 2050 we will have 31%. There will be 68 million people over 60 years old. The great challenge of the 21st century is what public policies we need for this population, as well as the great achievement of the last 100 years was being able to age”, points out the doctor Alexandre Kalache, president of the International Center for Longevity Brazil.
Physical limitations took him off the basketball courts and Olympic athlete Oscar Schmidt had to chart a new route as he got older. He became a motivational speaker. “I wanted to play basketball until I died, right? And it doesn’t. It’s not possible. I love giving speeches because I see people clapping and I’m telling my story to them. So that partly replaces everything I lost by stopping playing,” he says. Work is also what moves actress Suely Franco, who needed to exercise new skills by doing online theater during the pandemic.
It was also in sport that the couple Francisco Aguiar and Edmea Correia, aged 77 and 75, respectively, found a new way of facing aging. They have been surfers for 15 years and are part of a white-haired group that faces the waves of Santos (SP), under the tutelage of professor Cisco Araña, a surfing legend in Brazil.
“What really matters is our heads. In my case, I’m 75, but I’m fine, healthy, I’m perfect. We are a machine, if it stops, it will rust. And then what do you do? I will move until the last minute that I can and that Heavenly Father allows”, says Edmeia.
The writer Cris Guerra, author of the podcast Other Crises, in which he reflects on aging, reminds us that, with the increase in the elderly population, it is necessary to promote intergenerational coexistence in a more intentional way. She also emphasizes the importance of looking at all dimensions of the elderly person’s life, not just the condition of work.
“We have such a utilitarian relationship with human beings that we think that when they stop working, they are no longer productive, it is as if they are no longer useful. We really need to review all our concepts”, he defends.
The program’s team also followed a day in the lives of two over 60s who are still very active in their professional lives. Nurse Rubens Praser, who balances a heavy routine of studies and shifts in hospitals, and gas merchant João Evangelista, who, with the strength of his arms and throat, walks around the blocks of Plano Piloto, in Brasília, selling cooking gas . We also spoke with the Iraqi polyglot Henrique Hanna, who at 88 years old offers free English classes and is editing a dictionary.
“The big challenge for young people is that they don’t even know if they’re going to get old. He wants to get old, but he doesn’t want to get old. Well, he doesn’t have both. Getting old is good, dying early is just that it sucks”, says doctor Alexandre Kalache.
Datasheet
Reporting: Tiago Bittencourt
Producer: Carolina Oliveira
Text editing: Amanda Cieglinski
Image editing: Rivaldo Martins
Production support: Thiago Padovan, Julia Ballarini, Luciana Goes
Images: Sigmar Gonçalves, André Pacheco, Rogério Verçosa, Jorge Brum, João Pedro Gomes, Jefferson Gomes Pastori, William Sales Figueiredo, Eduardo Viné Boldt, Gílson Machado
Technical assistance: Maurício Aurélio Marcelo, Eduardo Domingues, João Batista de Lima, Cláudio Tavares, Alexandre Souza, Raimundo Nunes, José Carlos, Marcelo Vasconcelos
*With information from TV Brasil.
