Baby Boomer Health Dynamics

Are the baby boomers in Canada more or less healthy than previous generations? What are the implications of this for the national health care system? Baby Boomer Health Dynamic responds to the growing interest in the generation that makes up over one-third of the Canadian population ? the largest segment of society ? with the leading edge reaching their sixty-fifth birthday in 2011 and eighty-five by 2031.Focusing on four health behaviours that have been proven to be major risk factors for disease: smoking, unhealthy exercise, obesity, and heavy drinking ? Andrew V. Wister researches the long-term implications of several key lifestyle-health conundrums, most notably the paradoxical relationship in the concurrent trends over the last two decades of increased exercise levels and a significant rise in obesity. This invariably leads to questions about the eating habits of North Americans, and in particular, the quantity and quality of fast-food and convenience-food consumption. Recent public declarations by a number of health organizations and institutes that we are experiencing an obesity crisis, and moreover, that obesity is the ?new tobacco? makes Baby Boomer Health Dynamics both timely and topical.

Andrew V. Wister is the chair of the Department of Gerontology at Simon Fraser University.