In most civilizations, grandparents have an essential educational role. This has been the order of things since the dawn of time. It was without counting on industrialization, migration to the cities. The educational mission takes a serious blow and everything that makes the transmission of experience rich, in particular a certain form of educational “repression”, worries psychiatrists a great deal.
The civilization of leisure, of retirement at 65, the significant lengthening of life, generational conflicts and this new tendency to “enjoy” which is the sign of a successful third age, have changed the situation.
With his grandparents, we eat too much; too fat, too sweet. We don’t move enough and the educational sessions are often replaced by endless sessions of television or video games while grandpa does his crossword puzzles. The trend – fortunately not for everyone, as many Internet users will not fail to point out to us – is towards boredom. On both sides for that matter. This is the theory suggested by a team of researchers from the University of Glasgow. The world of psychiatry had not waited for this study to sound the alarm.
It must be said that, freed from the economic constraints of the past, the grandparent/grandchild couple is, on paper, ideal. It is even often the first pillar when faced with the delicate problem of blended families.
Available, active, better off, they don’t want to ruin their relationship by becoming the censors, and that’s where the problem lies.
Physicians should be aware of this, as secondary prevention messages – that is to say, to prevent once a disease has been diagnosed from getting worse – are a wall against which the best wills crash. of their elderly patients.
Eating less, eating better and exercising is the solid tripod of modern medicine
A simple concept that also fits younger generations like a glove. It is therefore this awareness that the doctors would like to bring to this singular couple. A win-win approach, where everyone has only happiness and years of life to save the other, which is still the major objective of these couples who love each other.
The prescription is simple: eat meals made together at regular times, taking the time to understand why we eat better. We must never lose sight of the fact that the family table is the university of life.
Move while having fun
You don’t necessarily need to go outside when it’s cold to fight a sedentary lifestyle. Manufacturers of so-called active game consoles, that is to say which require physical effort, have understood this well… Initially, this strategy was certainly imagined to allow children to get away from the usual sarcasm of their parents who accuse them of staying too long in front of video games. By giving them a concrete argument to justify the family purchase of these exercise consoles. The child, helped by the advertising messages of the manufacturers, manages to convince the parents of the physical benefit and the trick is played to buy the usual war games.
Let’s remind those who don’t know yet that these programs allow you to do physical exercise at home in front of a screen with a whole series of accessories…
This is where the doctor can give a serious helping hand by prescribing this type of exercise to the seniors of the house. Cardiologists have taken very precise measurements to quantify the energy expenditure of these exercises. They put players in very special rooms that perfectly measure that expense.
Do the exercises performed with these games actually deserve the term physical exercise? The researchers discovered that, in terms of physical activity, the energy expenditure developed for the console’s fitness or sport program corresponds to three times the number of what is defined in medicine as moderate activity.
Some doctors, a little more “trendy” than others, have started to prescribe consoles… or at least advise them!
It’s true that on paper, it’s a modern solution to restore the taste for activity to those who haven’t yet – children – and those who have lost it; the parents or better, the grandparents.
A console, for all those who do not have balance disorders, who can stand on this small platform without risk and who need physical activity.
With two downsides…
First, just because you have an opportunity to exercise doesn’t mean you have the courage to do it; because there is no miracle, comfort or not, it tires!
Then you have to watch out for falls, especially if the grandson forces his grandmother to imitate him.
But it is a first common ground to reconcile the “Olds” still a little flabbergasted by the number of packages at the foot of the tree. Moreover, there are numerous studies to show that simple console games delay memory problems after the age of 70. A way to combine business with pleasure and to ease some of the generational tensions, while not making the grandparents’ house a boredom trap.
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