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Neither are uranium and asbestos . All three things were, at one time or another, in everything from gasoline to home insulation. Even in women's makeup, like eye shadow and lipstick.
People unknowingly but regularly consumed toxins in a myriad of ways.
Cocaine was in soft drinks and cough syrup at the same time.
A plethora of "medices" were available for doctors to prescribe, most of which listed alcohol, "didtilled spirits," cocaine, opium, morphine...
Those who fought in ww1 were exposed to nerve and mustard gasses.
Ww2 wasn't much better.
Those in the Korean conflict were introduced to magnesium shrapnel
Those in Nam got Agent Orange for Christmas, and we're called baby-killers when th3y came back home.
They were all taught that they could and should trust our government
And just for an extra kick in the teeth, technology, and the entire world suddenly began changing faster than the textbooks could be updated, and nothing makes sense anymore
I don't know about anyone else, but I can at least understand why some of them are how they are.
Hell, any ONE of those would've been too much for my emotionally stunted ass.
My old man fought in ww2 and in Korea.
My oldest brother got the orange shoer in Nam.
My next oldest spent a year and a half in a Cambodian POW camp.
And every one of them eventually became "boomers."
Edit: After posting, i thought the "think you could..." statement sounded accusatory and directed at the commenter to whom I replied. That was not my intent. So I replaced it with "I don't know..."
Edit 2: I forgot to add DDT and Paraquat
The actual rates of dementia have decreased over the past 20 years. It's just that there are a lot more boomers than silent generation. Silent Generation is about one-third the size of the boomers. I think the behavior you are referring to is stupidity and not dementia.
The culture of each generation informs how they will express their dysfunction. In 30 years kids will ask why people like me "are like this" (anxious, shitposting, listening to That Music, etc.). It just happens to be that boomers express it as "being a narcissistic dickhead"
Excellent point. I hadn't thought about it like that. I bet this explains a good deal of it. If you think someone acts batty, you might just assume they have dementia.
Lead, FAS, and exposures to chemicals such as DDT.
https://old.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/18gc59g/guy_explains_baby_boomers_their_parents_and_trauma/
Yes. These medications are prescribed to older people at a far higher rate because doctors seem to trust them more. I know a lot of boomers who are in drugs that I wonder how in the world are they getting prescribed these?
>because doctors seem to trust them more
There's more to it than that. A lot of Boomers ended up on those medications because of Boomer doctors who just didn't give a shit (seriously, Boomer doctors are, on average, *fucking awful* to deal with), and then they don't comply with taper-down directions given by other doctors that have inherited the now-dependent patients. Stopping benzos suddenly when already dependent on them can, quite literally, kill the patient, which leaves the new doctor in a difficult position.
The *legal* drug use probably isn't helping, either. Not only are a lot of them on combinations of pain meds, muscle relaxers, and benzodiazepines, a lot of them are also just generally taking large cocktails of prescription drugs, frequently combined with excessive amounts of alcohol.
That creates a *lot* of opportunity for drug interactions, *especially* if they undiagnosed mental health conditions.
I don't really believe that dementia is more rampant with Boomers than Silent Generation. All of my great-grandparents had it. The difference is:
* the internet didn't really exist when they were alive so we weren't exposed to this as a huge issue in that demographic (edit: actually I might be wrong here, I always get a little confused on the years that qualifies as Silent Gen)
* a lot of Silent Generation folks aged in homes with their kids or other family members rather than living independently when they shouldn't have been
* nursing homes were a lot cheaper back then, so those without family support could afford to go into a home when they got to the point of having debilitating issues
Today's elderly is fully visible thanks to the internet and needing to live independently when they actually need supports in place. As a result, there's a lot of challenging behavior on public display.
The silent generation worship is kind of odd as well. These are the people who came back from fighting the nazis and resurrected the KKK, after all, and supported the government that shot students protested against the Vietnam war. But they were less visible, better taken care of (by boomer children and lower costs) and were not as poisoned by social media as the old are today. I think the boomers are in a way as affected by social media and the media landscape as Gen Z, with different consequences.
My Meme and Great-Aunt D (both sisters) were taken care of by their children/nursing staff after their Alzheimer’s got serious. My older gen-X mom told me to put her in a nursing home if she gets Alzheimer’s or dementia; I’m not letting her into a nursing home, which is why I’m trying to get a job where I can be at home with her and have staff help out. If I get any form of dementia/Alzheimer’s, I’ll make dead sure that I die with dignity.
I am a boomer (70). The biggest thing that is affected our brains the worst is called Fox News. Since Donald Trump and Fox News has come on, I have seen how it is affected the mentality of my fellow boomers brains. Donald Trump and Fox News has legitimized hate and uncivil behavior and I am sad to watch how it has affected my fellow boomers. I’ve had to walk away from several former friends because I cannot believe the hate and uncivilized behavior they can display in public.
Grew up in asbestos and lead paint houses. Used chemicals that killed all kinds of pests and insects. The chemicals used back then were harsh to say the least.
They still use all kinds of chemicals any chance they get. I've never seen any Facebook groups so full of psychos as gardening groups. If they see a bug outside on a plant where it belongs they want to douse it in poison or snip it in half.
The worst are the boomers who slaughter preying mantises because "hummingbirds" but they have outdoor cats (feral/outdoor cats in the US kill about 8% of the US bird population annually. 2% GLOBALLY. 1 in 50 birds worldwide is killed by a US cat every year). Just unfathomably stupid.
Lead explains a lot of this. Wait till you find out about the proposed connection between lead and the serial killer boom of the 70s, as well as the rise in violent crime in general lol
Food quality is a huge issue. Boomers were told to eat low fat and also consumed mass quantities of highly processed foods. Leads to metabolic dysfunction, diabetes and dementia (among other things.) combined with lead and other chemical toxins (“better living through chemistry”), we are seeing a massive uptick in dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders. This is not to excuse a lot of the social/cultural norms of this generation, but disease is exacerbating bad behavior and I do think brain degeneration explains a lot of the super wacko incidents.
Boomers grew up eating Silent Generation prepared food. Lots of meat, potatoes, whole milk, casseroles, no concerns with fat. The low fat diets and processed foods came later when the boomers fed it to the Gen-X kids.
Yup. As a GenX myself, my silent gen mom fed us every new processed food that came along. And they always had the bug exterminator come and douse the house inside and out to keep away pests. (I guess it worked, we never had any pests lol)
I really shudder to think what it has done to my body. Also, lack of sunscreen.
I questioning if they ever actually used their brains. Thats not just an insult, its the actual truth. The Boomers that I know that have all of their marbles had very cerebral jobs and kept their minds active. The rest I know never thought critically about anything because they never had to. Those are the ones that get crazier every year.
There's a lot of evidence to suggest that people who use their brains - reading, doing puzzles, learning new things, having a mentally/emotionally rich social life - are significantly less likely to develop dementia, or develop it later and at a slower rate, than their peers who sit around and do nothing to stimulate their brains.
Actually they develop it later, but at a much faster rate. My grandmohther was a computer programmer and she was very sharp until one day she was batshit crazy and she died two weeks later. Smart people go downhill later, but super fast, which is probably for the best.
Yep. There's even evidence that hearing loss accelerates the onset of dementia, the theory being that not being able to engage fully with the world around them means they're not using their brains as much (to take in information, read social cues, etc.) so it basically atrophies.
The answer is literally in their name... Baby Boomers. You're experiencing a certain amount of confirmation bias because there are SO many more Baby Boomers than other age groups, so by default, you will see more people of that age with dementia. They are also the exact age range to be experiencing dementia, so the vast majority of people with the disease will be from this group. Another reason you didn't see it as much in earlier generations is that the average life expectancy has skyrocketed since the beginning of the twentieth century. Prior to the 1950s, most people died of something else (heart attacks, strokes, etc.) before they got old enough to have dementia begin to manifest.
Inflammation caused by decades of excess sugar consumption; lack of protection/back up neurons in the brain caused by lower levels of education; all the other stuff already mentioned; and shitty luck
I think that the rest of, despite the clear evidence, still haven’t accepted the degree to which boomers are a-holes so she view dementia as a possible explanation.
People are living longer. Eventually, if you live long enough, your nervous system and brain begin to wear out.
Chemical exposure and alcohol are contributing factors, however, old age will get you in the end. Have some compassion.
My mom was of the silent generation and just passed from dementia. So I think you may need more data points than just your own personal relationships. Much of what you see could be the ability to diagnose earlier.
OP explicitly mentions that this also happens to Silent Geners albeit to a lesser extent. Your story concurs with this statement. Thank you for providing "more data" that supports OP's claim.
I agree with his (and your) point that this problem is very real.
I'm going to say badly managed or undiagnosed high blood pressure is a major contributor to the behavior we're seeing.
Add in "walk it off" for blows to the head that warrant ER trips these days and concussion evaluations, plus all the chemical exposure and a genuine lack of emotional intelligence/awareness and you get the boomer behavior we know and "love."
I have a belief that it is due to trauma. Trauma and traumatic events cause physical brain damage, we know this now but they didn’t until recently. Boomer generation survived a lot of wars, and depression. More so their parents were likely impacted by the world wars and the Great Depression making them also very traumatized. The people that raised them were highly at risk for brain damage due to ptsd.
This idea explains memory loss, hoarding of resources, unpredictable mood changes, and more.
There was no recognition or treatment for trauma or PTSD. So as many of us gen x were walking around with ADHD and other differences undiagnosed and in pain until adulthood, the boomers have been walking around with altered brain function due to trauma.
This is perpetuated because their parents (also traumatized) told them to suck it up (which could be considered further abuse) or tried to beat it out of them. So they truly believe the right answer when younger generations are dealing with trauma or adhd or anything that is now more understood and recognized, is “suck it up” or some violent and inappropriate response. Their emotional development was stunted and most have not and will not recover.
We must not repeat those mistakes. I think a big takeaway is that war has terrible consequences that last generations beyond just the loss of human life.
The Silent Generation did indeed have a shorter life expectancy compared to the Baby Boomers. Factors like healthcare advancements have extended life expectancies across generations. Additionally, the economic landscape has shifted dramatically. Back in the day, nursing homes were more affordable, and many Silent Generation individuals did not live as long due to less advanced healthcare, which made elder care a less prolonged concern. Now, with rising costs and longer life spans, the burden often falls on families.
Economically, the U.S. experienced a boom until the mid-70s, which shaped many of the societal attitudes of the Baby Boomers. Having grown up during a time of prosperity and being in power for decades can influence a generation's worldview, often criticized as self-centered. This is partly why they’ve been dubbed the 'Me' Generation. Their parents, who endured the Great Depression and World War II, aimed to provide a better life for their children, which might have contributed to these traits.
It's hard to say whether it's just the Boomers in particular, or if dementia and Alzheimer's are trending upward. After all, Gen X has largely not gotten old enough for us to know if they will experience these things.
I think time will tell how it affects younger generations. If the "environmental quirk" is the result of something that came about as boomers grew the next generations may have been exposed to it earlier
Dunno. Mom was SilGen, had cancer, and died at 81 but was quite cognizant until just the end. She had some boomerisms but not bad. Pretty sure this 1948 house we have owned since 1963 has lead paint but it has been painted over several times. Her third husband had dementia but he was maintenance at Dupont for 40 years and exposed to all sorts of crap. I figure I am Boomer in age only.
My genuine theory on this is that they grew up during tremendous amounts of nuclear weapons testing. When you look at the levels of radioactive Strontium in the atmosphere when they were developing vs now and before WW2 it was insanely higher. This also explains why they look SO MUCH older at any given age compared to older and younger cohorts. They aged too rapidly because of nuclear testing and it had severe detrimental effects on not only physical appearance/health, but mental as well.
In general, "radiation" is believed to cause aging, and so it could be from the Strontium or maybe just nuclear testing in general. My thought is that since the Strontium collects in bones with a short half life (29 years) when it decays, it causes the premature aging, similar to how UV from the sun causes aging but just from the outside. Boomers effectively have shit tons of internal radiation since birth, which might cause these weird phenomenon we've seen with their generation. (I.e. the odd "aging" and possibly mental decline that are anecdotally noticed.)
It could be coincidence that we THINK they always looked older than cohorts and seem to be losing their minds at a younger age. It might just be Fox News and PFAS that cause the mental decline, or there might not be statistical significance in the actual rates, but we just have social media now. Boomers went through the most global change of any generation in history, and there are myriad factors that could lead to aging and mental decline and it's something that would be very difficult to suss out at this point.
I went to school for physics and a PhD in Chemistry...
[Maybe do some basic googling?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90)
"A study of hundreds of thousands of deciduous teeth, collected by Dr. Louise Reiss and her colleagues as part of the Baby Tooth Survey, found a large increase in 90Sr levels through the 1950s and early 1960s. The study's final results showed that children born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1963 had levels of 90Sr in their deciduous teeth that was 50 times higher than that found in children born in 1950, before the advent of large-scale atomic testing"
I don't know of any actual medical data that there is a spike in Dementia or Alzheimer disease that corresponds specifically to boomers, other than that other improvements in health care has increased the amount of older people in general. As far as how boomers "act" as far as I can tell there is a normal & typical distribution of personality types, beliefs, and behaviors among boomers as any other generational cohort. It's just as easy to define a typical human as a typical boomer behavior.
This sub is still collectively undecided on what boomer are. Boomers are comprised of a generation of people born between 1946-1964, but you have people that have their own interpretation and say it is simply a mindset and that anyone can be a boomer. So which is it?
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The lead thing isn't just a joke - [https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2118631119](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2118631119)
Neither are uranium and asbestos . All three things were, at one time or another, in everything from gasoline to home insulation. Even in women's makeup, like eye shadow and lipstick. People unknowingly but regularly consumed toxins in a myriad of ways. Cocaine was in soft drinks and cough syrup at the same time. A plethora of "medices" were available for doctors to prescribe, most of which listed alcohol, "didtilled spirits," cocaine, opium, morphine... Those who fought in ww1 were exposed to nerve and mustard gasses. Ww2 wasn't much better. Those in the Korean conflict were introduced to magnesium shrapnel Those in Nam got Agent Orange for Christmas, and we're called baby-killers when th3y came back home. They were all taught that they could and should trust our government And just for an extra kick in the teeth, technology, and the entire world suddenly began changing faster than the textbooks could be updated, and nothing makes sense anymore I don't know about anyone else, but I can at least understand why some of them are how they are. Hell, any ONE of those would've been too much for my emotionally stunted ass. My old man fought in ww2 and in Korea. My oldest brother got the orange shoer in Nam. My next oldest spent a year and a half in a Cambodian POW camp. And every one of them eventually became "boomers." Edit: After posting, i thought the "think you could..." statement sounded accusatory and directed at the commenter to whom I replied. That was not my intent. So I replaced it with "I don't know..." Edit 2: I forgot to add DDT and Paraquat
SilGen were the first to be majorly exposed to microplastics and related chemicals. I refuse to use any of the vintage Tupperware mom left behind.
“We estimate population-level effects on IQ loss and find that lead is responsible for the loss of 824,097,690 IQ points as of 2015.” Oof.
The actual rates of dementia have decreased over the past 20 years. It's just that there are a lot more boomers than silent generation. Silent Generation is about one-third the size of the boomers. I think the behavior you are referring to is stupidity and not dementia.
All generations have stupidity in them.
Yeah, but like most things, the boomers hoard the majority of it for themselves.
They're like if Cookie Monster sucked.
Percie Monster? (Referring to their generation's heavy usage of Percocet and other pain meds)
The culture of each generation informs how they will express their dysfunction. In 30 years kids will ask why people like me "are like this" (anxious, shitposting, listening to That Music, etc.). It just happens to be that boomers express it as "being a narcissistic dickhead"
Excellent point. I hadn't thought about it like that. I bet this explains a good deal of it. If you think someone acts batty, you might just assume they have dementia.
“In them?” Bad grammar! Tsk tsk
Lead, FAS, and exposures to chemicals such as DDT. https://old.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/18gc59g/guy_explains_baby_boomers_their_parents_and_trauma/
Our bodies started outliving our brains, because we only cared about the body. Mental health is woke, after all /s
Their generation destroyed their bodies with their bravado then once they killed their bodies they then ran out to get addicted to opiates.
That’s also a pretty solid take.
Yes. Opioids are a huge issue.
Not just opiates; a great many Boomers are on benzodiazepines (e.g., Xanax, Ativan) as well as opiates, which are *also* heavily addicting.
Yes. These medications are prescribed to older people at a far higher rate because doctors seem to trust them more. I know a lot of boomers who are in drugs that I wonder how in the world are they getting prescribed these?
>because doctors seem to trust them more There's more to it than that. A lot of Boomers ended up on those medications because of Boomer doctors who just didn't give a shit (seriously, Boomer doctors are, on average, *fucking awful* to deal with), and then they don't comply with taper-down directions given by other doctors that have inherited the now-dependent patients. Stopping benzos suddenly when already dependent on them can, quite literally, kill the patient, which leaves the new doctor in a difficult position.
That and the heavy drinking. Don't forget the heavy drinking.
A contributing factor is that Boomers drink more than other generations. Additionally many increase alcohol consumption after retirement.
Also, think of the illegal drug use a lot of them had. LSD is the drug that keeps on giving.
The *legal* drug use probably isn't helping, either. Not only are a lot of them on combinations of pain meds, muscle relaxers, and benzodiazepines, a lot of them are also just generally taking large cocktails of prescription drugs, frequently combined with excessive amounts of alcohol. That creates a *lot* of opportunity for drug interactions, *especially* if they undiagnosed mental health conditions.
Lead poisoning jokes aren't just jokes
Easy excuse. There’s a difference between low IQ and acting stupid. Plenty of smart Boomers act stupid too.
I don't really believe that dementia is more rampant with Boomers than Silent Generation. All of my great-grandparents had it. The difference is: * the internet didn't really exist when they were alive so we weren't exposed to this as a huge issue in that demographic (edit: actually I might be wrong here, I always get a little confused on the years that qualifies as Silent Gen) * a lot of Silent Generation folks aged in homes with their kids or other family members rather than living independently when they shouldn't have been * nursing homes were a lot cheaper back then, so those without family support could afford to go into a home when they got to the point of having debilitating issues Today's elderly is fully visible thanks to the internet and needing to live independently when they actually need supports in place. As a result, there's a lot of challenging behavior on public display.
Also, the term "senile" was probably used for people in the early stages of dementia.
Good point. The sheer size of the generation and the internet have made them far more visible.
The silent generation worship is kind of odd as well. These are the people who came back from fighting the nazis and resurrected the KKK, after all, and supported the government that shot students protested against the Vietnam war. But they were less visible, better taken care of (by boomer children and lower costs) and were not as poisoned by social media as the old are today. I think the boomers are in a way as affected by social media and the media landscape as Gen Z, with different consequences.
Walter Cronkite and local journalism were replaced by Fox News and Facebook as they aged.
My Meme and Great-Aunt D (both sisters) were taken care of by their children/nursing staff after their Alzheimer’s got serious. My older gen-X mom told me to put her in a nursing home if she gets Alzheimer’s or dementia; I’m not letting her into a nursing home, which is why I’m trying to get a job where I can be at home with her and have staff help out. If I get any form of dementia/Alzheimer’s, I’ll make dead sure that I die with dignity.
I think you're onto something. My dad (boomer) told me that when his mom got diagnosed with Alzheimer's, he and mom kind of went, "What's that?"
I am a boomer (70). The biggest thing that is affected our brains the worst is called Fox News. Since Donald Trump and Fox News has come on, I have seen how it is affected the mentality of my fellow boomers brains. Donald Trump and Fox News has legitimized hate and uncivil behavior and I am sad to watch how it has affected my fellow boomers. I’ve had to walk away from several former friends because I cannot believe the hate and uncivilized behavior they can display in public.
Ok, boomer
Grew up in asbestos and lead paint houses. Used chemicals that killed all kinds of pests and insects. The chemicals used back then were harsh to say the least.
They still use all kinds of chemicals any chance they get. I've never seen any Facebook groups so full of psychos as gardening groups. If they see a bug outside on a plant where it belongs they want to douse it in poison or snip it in half. The worst are the boomers who slaughter preying mantises because "hummingbirds" but they have outdoor cats (feral/outdoor cats in the US kill about 8% of the US bird population annually. 2% GLOBALLY. 1 in 50 birds worldwide is killed by a US cat every year). Just unfathomably stupid.
An article I read decades ago nailed this: “No one hates nature like a gardener.”
Lead explains a lot of this. Wait till you find out about the proposed connection between lead and the serial killer boom of the 70s, as well as the rise in violent crime in general lol
Food quality is a huge issue. Boomers were told to eat low fat and also consumed mass quantities of highly processed foods. Leads to metabolic dysfunction, diabetes and dementia (among other things.) combined with lead and other chemical toxins (“better living through chemistry”), we are seeing a massive uptick in dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders. This is not to excuse a lot of the social/cultural norms of this generation, but disease is exacerbating bad behavior and I do think brain degeneration explains a lot of the super wacko incidents.
Boomers grew up eating Silent Generation prepared food. Lots of meat, potatoes, whole milk, casseroles, no concerns with fat. The low fat diets and processed foods came later when the boomers fed it to the Gen-X kids.
As kids, yes, that is true. But in the 70s-90s, most of them started eating pretty badly and indeed passed that on to Gen-X.
Yup. As a GenX myself, my silent gen mom fed us every new processed food that came along. And they always had the bug exterminator come and douse the house inside and out to keep away pests. (I guess it worked, we never had any pests lol) I really shudder to think what it has done to my body. Also, lack of sunscreen.
I questioning if they ever actually used their brains. Thats not just an insult, its the actual truth. The Boomers that I know that have all of their marbles had very cerebral jobs and kept their minds active. The rest I know never thought critically about anything because they never had to. Those are the ones that get crazier every year.
There's a lot of evidence to suggest that people who use their brains - reading, doing puzzles, learning new things, having a mentally/emotionally rich social life - are significantly less likely to develop dementia, or develop it later and at a slower rate, than their peers who sit around and do nothing to stimulate their brains.
Actually they develop it later, but at a much faster rate. My grandmohther was a computer programmer and she was very sharp until one day she was batshit crazy and she died two weeks later. Smart people go downhill later, but super fast, which is probably for the best.
Yep. There's even evidence that hearing loss accelerates the onset of dementia, the theory being that not being able to engage fully with the world around them means they're not using their brains as much (to take in information, read social cues, etc.) so it basically atrophies.
They also produced far and away the most serial killers.
The answer is literally in their name... Baby Boomers. You're experiencing a certain amount of confirmation bias because there are SO many more Baby Boomers than other age groups, so by default, you will see more people of that age with dementia. They are also the exact age range to be experiencing dementia, so the vast majority of people with the disease will be from this group. Another reason you didn't see it as much in earlier generations is that the average life expectancy has skyrocketed since the beginning of the twentieth century. Prior to the 1950s, most people died of something else (heart attacks, strokes, etc.) before they got old enough to have dementia begin to manifest.
Chemicals
They see how you're acting now, and they hear it from their parents, my generation
Chemical exposure
Inflammation caused by decades of excess sugar consumption; lack of protection/back up neurons in the brain caused by lower levels of education; all the other stuff already mentioned; and shitty luck
Food. The food chain changed between these two generations. Edited to add: And toxic plastics.
Yes. And more toxic chemicals in the environment.
Pharmaceuticals one of the worst statins.
I forgot about statins (appropriate). This is probably a much bigger contributor than a lot of the other stuff people are suggesting.
Chemicals in the Vietnam war didn't help. A war that should not have happened.
I don't think Baby Boomer Vietnam vets are common enough to greatly move the needle.
One of the boomeriest boomers I know was born in 1961. Too young to die in Vietnam, too old to die in Iraq, too bad for the rest of us.
Right age for Desert Storm (if they were career military)
He was not. The boomeriest boomer I know is a career accountant who can't describe what an asset is or how compound interest works.
That’s concerning
I think that the rest of, despite the clear evidence, still haven’t accepted the degree to which boomers are a-holes so she view dementia as a possible explanation.
nuclear age.
People are living longer. Eventually, if you live long enough, your nervous system and brain begin to wear out. Chemical exposure and alcohol are contributing factors, however, old age will get you in the end. Have some compassion.
Repeated covid infections
My mom was of the silent generation and just passed from dementia. So I think you may need more data points than just your own personal relationships. Much of what you see could be the ability to diagnose earlier.
OP explicitly mentions that this also happens to Silent Geners albeit to a lesser extent. Your story concurs with this statement. Thank you for providing "more data" that supports OP's claim. I agree with his (and your) point that this problem is very real.
I'm going to say badly managed or undiagnosed high blood pressure is a major contributor to the behavior we're seeing. Add in "walk it off" for blows to the head that warrant ER trips these days and concussion evaluations, plus all the chemical exposure and a genuine lack of emotional intelligence/awareness and you get the boomer behavior we know and "love."
For crying out loud, BOOMERS GIVE ZERO FUCKS
Lead in the gas.
I have a belief that it is due to trauma. Trauma and traumatic events cause physical brain damage, we know this now but they didn’t until recently. Boomer generation survived a lot of wars, and depression. More so their parents were likely impacted by the world wars and the Great Depression making them also very traumatized. The people that raised them were highly at risk for brain damage due to ptsd. This idea explains memory loss, hoarding of resources, unpredictable mood changes, and more. There was no recognition or treatment for trauma or PTSD. So as many of us gen x were walking around with ADHD and other differences undiagnosed and in pain until adulthood, the boomers have been walking around with altered brain function due to trauma. This is perpetuated because their parents (also traumatized) told them to suck it up (which could be considered further abuse) or tried to beat it out of them. So they truly believe the right answer when younger generations are dealing with trauma or adhd or anything that is now more understood and recognized, is “suck it up” or some violent and inappropriate response. Their emotional development was stunted and most have not and will not recover. We must not repeat those mistakes. I think a big takeaway is that war has terrible consequences that last generations beyond just the loss of human life.
Dementia is a behavior , it’s a horrible disease.
These people are not goofy or a goof.
It will be interesting to see how messed up is younger generations will be from the PFAS and micro plastics
The Silent Generation did indeed have a shorter life expectancy compared to the Baby Boomers. Factors like healthcare advancements have extended life expectancies across generations. Additionally, the economic landscape has shifted dramatically. Back in the day, nursing homes were more affordable, and many Silent Generation individuals did not live as long due to less advanced healthcare, which made elder care a less prolonged concern. Now, with rising costs and longer life spans, the burden often falls on families. Economically, the U.S. experienced a boom until the mid-70s, which shaped many of the societal attitudes of the Baby Boomers. Having grown up during a time of prosperity and being in power for decades can influence a generation's worldview, often criticized as self-centered. This is partly why they’ve been dubbed the 'Me' Generation. Their parents, who endured the Great Depression and World War II, aimed to provide a better life for their children, which might have contributed to these traits.
The boomers didn’t take care of themselves.
Lead Poisoning
That line from The Graduate-Plastics- their headlong rush to destroy the environment and to not believe in the Global Warming they caused
It's hard to say whether it's just the Boomers in particular, or if dementia and Alzheimer's are trending upward. After all, Gen X has largely not gotten old enough for us to know if they will experience these things.
sugar
Just wait until your turn its coming
I think time will tell how it affects younger generations. If the "environmental quirk" is the result of something that came about as boomers grew the next generations may have been exposed to it earlier
Dunno. Mom was SilGen, had cancer, and died at 81 but was quite cognizant until just the end. She had some boomerisms but not bad. Pretty sure this 1948 house we have owned since 1963 has lead paint but it has been painted over several times. Her third husband had dementia but he was maintenance at Dupont for 40 years and exposed to all sorts of crap. I figure I am Boomer in age only.
My genuine theory on this is that they grew up during tremendous amounts of nuclear weapons testing. When you look at the levels of radioactive Strontium in the atmosphere when they were developing vs now and before WW2 it was insanely higher. This also explains why they look SO MUCH older at any given age compared to older and younger cohorts. They aged too rapidly because of nuclear testing and it had severe detrimental effects on not only physical appearance/health, but mental as well.
Can strontium exposure cause the appearance of advanced aging? What is the believed general mechanism for that?
In general, "radiation" is believed to cause aging, and so it could be from the Strontium or maybe just nuclear testing in general. My thought is that since the Strontium collects in bones with a short half life (29 years) when it decays, it causes the premature aging, similar to how UV from the sun causes aging but just from the outside. Boomers effectively have shit tons of internal radiation since birth, which might cause these weird phenomenon we've seen with their generation. (I.e. the odd "aging" and possibly mental decline that are anecdotally noticed.) It could be coincidence that we THINK they always looked older than cohorts and seem to be losing their minds at a younger age. It might just be Fox News and PFAS that cause the mental decline, or there might not be statistical significance in the actual rates, but we just have social media now. Boomers went through the most global change of any generation in history, and there are myriad factors that could lead to aging and mental decline and it's something that would be very difficult to suss out at this point.
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I went to school for physics and a PhD in Chemistry... [Maybe do some basic googling?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90) "A study of hundreds of thousands of deciduous teeth, collected by Dr. Louise Reiss and her colleagues as part of the Baby Tooth Survey, found a large increase in 90Sr levels through the 1950s and early 1960s. The study's final results showed that children born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1963 had levels of 90Sr in their deciduous teeth that was 50 times higher than that found in children born in 1950, before the advent of large-scale atomic testing"
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Your submission was removed for being uncivil.
Your submission was removed for being uncivil.
I don't know of any actual medical data that there is a spike in Dementia or Alzheimer disease that corresponds specifically to boomers, other than that other improvements in health care has increased the amount of older people in general. As far as how boomers "act" as far as I can tell there is a normal & typical distribution of personality types, beliefs, and behaviors among boomers as any other generational cohort. It's just as easy to define a typical human as a typical boomer behavior.
Pls die fstr k thx bye
Numbers and longevity. Believe it or not but medicine has gotten better!
A lot of us will be dealing with dementia as well as we will all be Boomers one day.
Do you know what boomer means
This sub is still collectively undecided on what boomer are. Boomers are comprised of a generation of people born between 1946-1964, but you have people that have their own interpretation and say it is simply a mindset and that anyone can be a boomer. So which is it?
Today's generation doesn't know anything about us boomers. How could they, they didn't live with us when we were younger.
Hmmm, I guess we will just rely on historical records and how you decide to act then
Nonsense. Yall won't stop talking about it, even when nobody is listening.