Larimer County Summit on Aging
Shaping the Future of Larimer County
Abstract: Aging as an Out of Body Experience or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Gravity
Keynote Address
Philip B. Stafford, PhD
Bloomington, Indiana
Age spots, spare tires, thinning hair, crows’ nests, creaks and cracks, ticking clocks.
We could go on…
Yes, it’s true that aging ain’t for sissies.
But anti- aging medicine ain’t going to save us either.
That’s because aging is not just about time and the body.
In this talk, cultural anthropologist Dr. Phil Stafford will challenge the audience to re-think what it means to grow old. He will question our obsession with youth and re-frame aging as a matter of community and place, not of individual bodies.
In a summit on aging in the community, it is fitting that participants address those things that we can do, as a community, to create good places to grow old. Sure, it’s true that exercise, good nutrition, and social connections are essential to healthy aging. But what good is this admonition if fear of crime keeps an elder a prisoner in her own home. If widowhood means an old man has lost his chief “nutritionist”. If a suburban cul de sac means public buses don’t run close.
On the positive side, there are a thousand things that communities can do to create environments which promote health, well-being and independence for elders. Moreover, doing these things pays back thousand-fold through the contributions that elders make to their families, their neighborhoods, their communities and the planet.
Stafford will introduce the audience to towns and cities around the US that are taking up the challenge of planning for the significant demographic changes ahead and suggest that the leadership in the room is well-positioned to create a true “community for a lifetime.”
