The PDHPE & CAFS Podcast with Kelly Bell
Sep 8, 2026 · 32 min · 14 segments
The ageing population content in Health and Movement Science has been reworked and most of us are teaching it with little more than the syllabus to work from. That makes it hard to give Health and…
Rob LyonGuest
Kelly BellHost
So now what do you do? I suppose let's start with the actual issue, naming the issue.
What are some key things that maybe students need to consider before they even start looking at this aging population in our country?
Obviously, what we need to understand is that the burden of disease is a real thing in this country and in every country.
Because of the increase in access to medication and life extension through that as well.
Because the fact that we're literally living longer means we've got a bigger gap between our lifespan, which is the number of years that we live on this planet, and our health span, which is how many of those years we're actually living in good health.
And the problem is we're actually having a lifespan that's increasing as people are living longer and longer.
So, we have this massive gap where we have people that are spending 10, 15, 20 of their last years on the planet in really poor health.
And as a student and sometimes even as teachers, we don't even realize that even though we're apparently fit and healthy, we're paying for all this.
We're paying for it through taxation and levies and all of these sorts of things and these government services that we need to put in place because what we need to do is we need to bridge this gap.
We need to bump the healthspan up close to the lifespan so that people are living healthier for longer and for a larger percentage of their years.
What do you think this, like the aging population right now, what do you think has happened? Like, why don't they maybe see the importance of the prevention that actually happens before getting to this point?
I think a lot of the people who are now, if you think about in their 60s, 70s and 80s, grew up in a generation where they didn't pay any attention to health, exercise, nutrition, most specifically, definitely.
So now what do you do? I suppose let's start with the actual issue, naming the issue.
What are some key things that maybe students need to consider before they even start looking at this aging population in our country?
Obviously, what we need to understand is that the burden of disease is a real thing in this country and in every country.
Because of the increase in access to medication and life extension through that as well.
Because the fact that we're literally living longer means we've got a bigger gap between our lifespan, which is the number of years that we live on this planet, and our health span, which is how many of those years we're actually living in good health.
And the problem is we're actually having a lifespan that's increasing as people are living longer and longer.
So, we have this massive gap where we have people that are spending 10, 15, 20 of their last years on the planet in really poor health.
And as a student and sometimes even as teachers, we don't even realize that even though we're apparently fit and healthy, we're paying for all this.
We're paying for it through taxation and levies and all of these sorts of things and these government services that we need to put in place because what we need to do is we need to bridge this gap.
We need to bump the healthspan up close to the lifespan so that people are living healthier for longer and for a larger percentage of their years.
What do you think this, like the aging population right now, what do you think has happened? Like, why don't they maybe see the importance of the prevention that actually happens before getting to this point?
I think a lot of the people who are now, if you think about in their 60s, 70s and 80s, grew up in a generation where they didn't pay any attention to health, exercise, nutrition, most specifically, definitely.
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