2. 2
1. Introduction
2. Fact or Fiction?
3. The Aging Process
4. The Sexual-Reproductive System
5. Health Habits
6. Measuring Health
7. Variations
8. Closing Thoughts
PART VII: MIDDLE ADULTHOOD
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
3. Fact or Fiction? Fiction Fact
1. Fifteen percent of all couples in the United States
are infertile.
2. Menopause is a time of difficulty and
depression for most women.
3. The average level of testosterone in men declines
markedly during adulthood.
4. Fifty percent or more of American adults are obese.
3
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
4. senescence: A gradual physical decline related to aging.
Senescence
How does a person’s
appearance change
from childhood
through adulthood?
4
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
6. How does vision change with age?
Changes in Aging Vision
Accuracy of vision overall
Age (years)
(a) (b)
Age (years)
Ability to focus on a point a foot away
Source: Meisami, 1994.
20/60
20/50
20/40
20/30
20/20
20/10
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
5 15 25 35 45 55 65
presbyopia
6
0 20 40 60 80 100
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
8. Fertility
What are some causes and treatments for infertility?
Common reason: low sperm count
Anything that impairs the body
over a 75-day period and reduces
sperm count, shape, and motility
(activity)—like fever, radiation,
prescription drugs, drug abuse,
alcoholism, cigarette smoking
Anything that impairs physical
functioning—like certain
diseases, smoking, extreme
dieting, and obesity
Pelvic inflammatory disease
(PID) that scars tissue and blocks
fallopian tubes, preventing
sperm from reaching the ovum
Assisted reproductive technology
(ART) overcomes obstacles such
as low sperm count and blocked
fallopian tubes
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is one
ART procedure that involves the
help of donor sperm, ova, and
wombs to help the partner that
is infertile or a person with no
partner of the other sex
Male cause Female cause Infertility treatments
Infertility
8
Allphotos:Stockbyte/GettyImages
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
9. Menopause
andropause:
A term coined to signify a
drop in testosterone levels
in older men, which
normally results in reduced
sexual desire, erections,
and muscle mass (also
called male menopause).
menopause:
The time in middle age, usually
around age 50, when a woman’s
menstrual periods cease and the
production of estrogen,
progesterone, and testosterone
drops. Strictly speaking,
menopause is dated one year
after a woman’s last menstrual
period, although many months
before and after that date are
menopausal.
9
What happens to the sexual-reproductive life of men and women in middle age?
INDIVIDUALS SHOWN ARE MODELS-
ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES ONLY.
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
10. Drug Use
How does smoking affect adult health
in the United States?
Source: National Center for Health Statistics, 2010.
Cigarette Smoking in the United States
Emerging Adults Adults (25-64) Older Adults
(over 65)
Men Women
Year
1970 1990 2007
0
10
20
30
40
50
Percent Percent
Year
1970 1990 2007
0
10
20
30
40
50
Percent
Year
1970 1990 2007
0
10
20
30
10
Because North American
men have been quitting
for decades, lung cancer
deaths for 55- to 64-year-
old males are about half
what they were in 1970.
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
11. How many adults in the world are obese?
Eating
Source: World Health Organization Global InfoBase, 2010.
Obesity Worldwide: Percent Adults, Age 30 to 100, Whose BMI Is 30 or More
Men
Women
Country Argentina Australia Brazil Canada China France Germany India Israel Italy Jamaica
48 32 16 30 5 13 31 3 23 14 10
Obesity Worldwide: Percent Adults, Age 30 to 100, Whose BMI Is 30 or More
Men
Women
Country Japan Mexico
New
Zealand
Nigeria Peru Poland
Russian
Federation
South
Africa
Spain
United
Kingdom
United
States
3 37 37 4 24 19 14 11 25 32 50
47 37 32 32 5 11 31 3 37 14 53
2 51 48 11 50 27 35 48 25 34 55
11
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
12. What can adults do to help prevent common, chronic diseases?
Preventative Medicine
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2009.
Percent of U.S. Residents Who
Say They Exercise at Least
Half an Hour a Day
Age 1998
18-24
24-44
45-64
37
32
29
37
33
30
2007
12
USDA
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
13. mortality: Death; usually refers to the number of deaths each year per 1,000 members
of a given population.
morbidity: Disease; usually refers to the rate of disease in a given population—physical
and emotional, acute (sudden) and chronic (ongoing).
How does the United States compare to other countries in life expectancy?
Mortality and Morbidity
Australia
France
Germany
Japan
Mexico
Norway
Poland
Spain
Turkey
United States
United Kingdom
60 70 80 90 60 70 80 90
Life Expectancy at Birth, 2006 Female
Male
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PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
14. Disability and Vitality
disability: Difficulty in performing normal activities of daily life.
vitality: A measure of health that refers to how healthy and energetic
an individual actually feels.
Why do DALY and QALY measurements matter?
DALY calculations measure the reduced
quality of life caused by disability
QALY calculations compare mere survival
without vitality to survival with good health.
A full year of health is a full QALY; people
with less than full health have a fraction of
QALY each year. Thus, their total QALY is less
than the total years they live.
70 years old
DALY: Disability-adjusted life years QALY: Quality-adjusted life years
14
x
10 % reduced function
63 DALYs
=
70 years old
x
100 % vitality
70 QALYs
=
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
15. Black Hispanic
0
10
20
30
40
50
Ethnicity and Health
Which U.S. group, on average, is healthier:
Those who are foreign-born or native-born?
Risk of Heart Attack in U.S. Immigrants and Native-Born Americans
Prevalenceofplaque
(percent)
Source:Lutseyetal.,2008.
Race/Ethnicity
White Chinese
Foreign-born
U.S.-born
15
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
16. From what you learned in this
presentation, what are some
ways in which senescence
influences major life choices
for adults between the ages
of 25 and 65?
16
Closing Thoughts
Stockbyte/GettyImages
PART VII: Middle Adulthood
TOPIC 20: Biosocial Development
Instructions:
Click to start video.
According to the animation, what are the indicators of senescence in the brain during middle adulthood?
6
Instructions:
Click to play a video about changes in vision during adulthood.
Based on the demonstration in this video clip, how would you describe what seeing is like for someone who has experienced age-related vision changes?
8
9
Instruction:
Click on each of the graphs to reveal data.
Rates of smoking for women increased in the twentieth century, so decreased later than for men. Fifty years ago, more women died form the “female cancers” (breast, uterine, or ovarian) than from lung cancer, but in 2008, about twice as many women died from lung cancer as from the combined total of those other three types (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2009).
The World Health Organization calls tobacco “the single largest preventable cause of death and chronic disease in the world today” (Blas & Kurup, 2010, p. 199). In China, for example, where 350 million adults now smoke, the rate of lung cancer deaths almost tripled from 1975 to 2005 (Xin, 2008).
Instruction:
Click twice to reveal the corresponding data for all countries by gender.
In the United States, longitudinal research finds that adults gain one two pounds a year on average, much more than their grandparents’ generation did during adulthood. The basic problem is consumption of too many high-calorie foods combined with too little activity—a combination that leads to obesity for about half of all U.S. adults over 30 and about one-fourth of adults worldwide (World Health Organization Global InfoBase, 2010).
Instruction:
Click each group to reveal the data from the year 2007.
Excess weight increases the risk of every chronic disease; one example is diabetes, rapidly becoming more common and causing eye, heart, and foot problems as well as early death. The United States is the world leader in obesity and diabetes.
Regular physical activity protects against serious illness even if a person has other undesirable health habits such as smoking and overeating. Exercise reduces blood pressure; strengthens the heart and lungs; and makes depression, osteoporosis, heart disease, arthritis, and even some cancers less likely.
In general, eating fewer calories and less fat is more important for weight loss than are specifics. Also, the best predictor of maintaining weight loss is an hour of exercise a day (Shai & Stampfer, 2009).
Instruction:
Click to reveal the data.
On average women live five years longer than men. This gender difference could be biological—the second X chromosome or extra estrogen could protect women from some illnesses. It also might be cultural since women tend to have more friends and take better care of themselves.
Morbidity does not necessarily correlate with mortality. In the United States, almost half of older women have osteoarthritis, but none die of it. Women also have higher rates of morbidity for almost every chronic disease.
Instructions:
Disability occurs because of some physical, mental, or emotional condition.
Vitality refers to how a person feels physically, intellectually, and socially.
Click to reveal one person’s DALY calculation. Click to reveal one person’s QALY calculation.
A major reason for calculating DALYs or QALYs is to decide how to allocate public funds for health. No society spends enough to enable everyone to live life to the fullest. Without some measure of disability and vitality, the best health care goes to whoever has the most money.
Here’s one example involving the use of tax dollars: Does a community spend this money on extremely low-birth-weight newborns or young college students’ kidney dialysis? If care of 500-gram babies costs $10 million per life saved yet those infants who survived were severely disabled, while dialysis cost $10,000 per life saved and the survivors led vital adult lives, then dialysis would be the priority. But would it matter if those damaged kidneys were the result of drug abuse?
Instruction:
Click to reveal data for each racial group.
This study shows that in the United States, those who are foreign-born appear to be healthier than those who are native-born.
Could an explanation be that higher SES and healthier people immigrate—even though in the United States they may be at he bottom of the social ladder?
Research suggests that something more than this “healthy immigrant” theory is at work (Bates et al., 2008). Perhaps there are psychological or ethnic influences in other cultures that reduce drug use and increase nutrition and exercise.