There has been the suggestion that perhaps it's not that those of us in our generation, the Boomers, are really sicker than previous generations, but that we expect to be so much healthier than everyone who came before us, that as a generation we're so accustomed to being the best and the brightest and having the newest and shiniest that we can't live up to our own image of what we're supposed to feel like at 55 or 60.

It's sometimes frighteningly clear that we Boomers have trouble dealing with what 60 LOOKS like, so could it be that the reputed state of reduced health will add up to be more of a case of denial defiance than disease?

"As they age, they may be less tolerant of the changes they see -- minor pains, less stamina, muscle loss and strength," Beth J. Soldo of the Population Aging Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania said. "I don't just think they are crybabies or whiners. I think there is a changing definition of what good health means."

Other scientist see something more dangerous and have no compunction about predicting a drop in life expectancy for the first time in history.

Putting in my own two cents-worth on the topic, I'd like to suggest that maybe the Boomer generation is the one that hits the wall. I mean, really, how far can the edge of the envelope be pushed right now? New and improved is one thing but, like it or not, built-in obsolescence is as Boomer a fact of life as knowing the words to the entire Beatle’s library.

Life expectancy in America has jumped from 47.3 years in 1900 to 77.9 years in 2006.

Considering the rate of the advent of vaccines, improvements in sterilization techniques and other medical advances over the past 106 years, a jump of 30.6 years makes a lot of sense, but do we really think we can and should keep this up forever?

Maybe, just maybe, we're the generation that reaches the peak that flattens out into a nice plateau for a while. I'll be happy enough to hit level ground for a while, especially if that means some folks will feel comfortable enough to take some of these years we have now and use them for parenting kids who will benefit from a mom and dad, wrinkled or not.

More on how healthy we are, or not, and how much that matters in the next post.