Baby boomers are less healthy than generation before

Baby boomers are living longer lives than their parents, but are in worse health, as they are more likely to suffer from obesity and lack of exercise.

It is more frequent in baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, to suffer from high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes than in the generation before them, as reported by ABCNews.

Dana King and her colleagues conducted a study in which they used data from people who were 46 to 64 years old between 1988 and 1994, and the baby boomers who were in the same age range but between the years of 2007 and 2010, stated Reuters.

Her findings were quite interesting.

Thirty-nine percent of baby boomers were obese, and 16 percent had diabetes. This was compared to the generation before theirs which stated that only 29 percent were obese, and 12 percent had diabetes.

Baby boomers were also less likely to get exercise, and were more likely to have high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

“Despite their longer life expectancy over previous generations, U.S. baby boomers have higher rates of chronic disease, more disability, and lower self-rated health than members of the previous generation at the same age,” the study authors wrote. “On a positive note, baby boomers are less likely to smoke cigarettes and experience lower rates of emphysema and [heart attacks] than the previous generation.”