Saturday, August 11, 2007

The New Face of Fitness is Getting Older

(CNN) -- Sixty used to be old -- or at least it seemed to be. In the '80s, seniors had TV role models like the Golden Girls, Matlock and "Murder She Wrote's" mystery-writing sleuth, Jessica Fletcher. Harrison Ford may be 65, but he still fits into Indiana Jones' trousers from 1981.
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Now baby boomers can look to Goldie Hawn, Diane Sawyer and Harrison Ford for inspiration as they near retirement age. Today's seniors also have a much different view of fitness than their parents, said Colin Milner, CEO of the International Council on Active Aging.

"Exercise was actually a bad word," Milner said. "The term exercise meant hard work. It was what you did in the military or body builders did at Muscle Beach and women were told that if they did it they weren't womanly or it would hurt their reproductive organs."

Baby boomers like Jane Fonda, jogging pioneer Jim Fixx and aerobics inventor Ken Cooper helped create the modern fitness movement, according to Milner. Read more.

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