WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. When it comes to getting older Mark Twain said age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind it doesn't matter. Now there's science to back this up. Research on Aging says we are what we think if we harbor negative stereotypes about getting all that could actually affect our health. As we get older for the worse if we can mock up all the associations we tend to make with aging from shambling on the shuffleboard court to surrendering to a senior moment. We could begin to improve our own lives and longevity. We'll talk to researchers who are looking into the mindset that can bring on heart failure or get us to that happy and healthy 100. We top off the hour with two brothers who are bringing a fresh start to Dorchester by way of fresh food. Up next second thoughts on old age and second chances for Dorchester. First the news. NPR News in Washington I'm Craig Wyndham. Authorities in New York City and the nation's

capital are taking no chances stepping up security on their subway systems following the suicide bomb attacks that killed at least 38 people in two subway stations in Moscow this morning. But these New York subway riders do not seem worried. I don't really have any fear of our subways I just feel that. This. Is nothing new. Stuffy. About it you would think that. This. Would I feel a little more secure. That they've got more nervous than me but gotta get the work. Done. In Moscow Peter Van Dyke reports today's attack which was carried out by two female suicide bombers caused panic in the city. The trains were packed when the bomb struck about 45 minutes apart during this morning's rush hour. President Dmitri Medvedev condemned the attack and vowed the country would fight terrorism without hesitation and to the end. The head of Russia's Federal Security Service told the president during a televised meeting that the attacks were believed to have been the work of rebels from the

country's restive North Caucuses terrorist violence is common in the region which includes Chechnya but rare outside. However this attack follows one in November on a Moscow some Petersburg express train that killed 27 people made videos ordered increased security across the country and said previous measures had been inadequate. For NPR News I'm Peter Van Dyck in Moscow. Seven members of a religious militia have been arraigned in Detroit on charges of conspiring to kill police officers. Attack a funeral with bombs and then set up a violent confrontation with authorities. The suspects were among eight people arrested over the weekend in raids by FBI agents in the Midwest. One suspect is still at large. The Commerce Department says consumer spending is up slightly for the fifth straight month up three tenths of a percent in February. NPR's Tamara Keith reports. Spending rose even as personal incomes remained flat. Consumer spending makes up about 70 percent of the U.S. economy. But if incomes didn't see any gains in February where were people getting their spending

cash. Ken Mayland president of ClearView Economics says it came from their savings accounts. The savings rate dropped at three point one percent the smallest since October of 2008. We're getting these increases in consumer spending from reductions in the personal savings rate. I call that step one of this consumer spending advantage. Step two he says would be increases in spending that come as a result of good solid increases in income and that will require gains in employment. Tamara Keith NPR News Washington. Wall Street's having a positive reaction to the numbers the Dow industrials are up 35 points at ten thousand eight hundred eighty three the Nasdaq is up nine. This is NPR News from Washington. A former senior executive with IBM has pleaded guilty to federal securities and fraud charges in connection with what prosecutors say was the largest insider trading case in Hedge Fund history. Robert Moffat is the highest level executive among 21 people arrested. The charges carry a

potential sentence of 25 years in prison but under the terms of his plea agreement Moffitt may end up serving no more than six months behind bars. Serbia's parliament is considering making a formal apology for what is internationally recognized as genocide in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1905. As Teri Schultz reports lawmakers will decide whether official regret is appropriate for the largest single mass killing on European soil since World War 2. It's an event that stands out for its brutality even in the long list of atrocities that filled the Bosnian War of the early 90s. Some 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys from the town of 72 were killed by Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitaries. The Serbian parliament tomorrow will consider a resolution that regrets the failure of Serbia's then leaders to prevent the killing and expresses sympathy for the victims though it stops short of calling it an act of genocide. Many inside Serbia as well as former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on trial in The Hague still deny the massacre ever happened. The current

Serbian leadership however believes an apology would be a significant step toward regional reconciliation as well as towards Belgrade hopes to get into the European Union. For NPR News I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels. The Treasury Department says it's set to begin selling the government's stake in Citi Group a move that could net the treasury at least seven billion dollars in profit the government got Citigroup stock in exchange for 25 billion it loaned the bank during the credit crisis. I'm Craig Wyndham NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from Lending Tree providing customers with the ability to manage their money credit and loans all in one place at Lending Tree dot com. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. Recent research on aging suggests we are what we think. It turns out that if we harbor negative stereotypes about getting old that could actually affect our health. As we get older. Joining us to talk through the power of negative and positive thinking is Professor Becca

leaving. She's a professor at the Yale School of Public Health. Her latest study on Aging tracked adults for 30 years documenting how their perceptions of aging influence their own aging process. Also with me is Dr. Thomas Perls. He is the director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston Medical Center and professor Maas a rainbow an A-Z joins us from her office at Harvard where she is the professor of social psychology Welcome to you all. Thank you. Now I want to give a call out to our listeners because I know that you have some feelings about aging and stereotyping so which ones do you harbor. What stereotypes do you want to challenge. Give us a call at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. That's 8 7 7 3 0 1. Eighty nine seventy. Dr. Levy I want to start with you and ask if you would explain what the study found and why did you decide to look at this. Sure. Thanks Kelly. It's great to be on your program and it's great to be on with Dr. Banaji Dr. Perls.

So let me tell you yes a little bit about this latest study. We've been really interested in the question Is it possible that the stereotypes that exist in a culture have a direct impact on the older individuals and Previously we've been looking at this experimentally and in the community over time but we've been focusing on older individuals. And we've always assumed that it's the story the stereotypes are taken in at a younger age and then they're carried over into old age. But we haven't been able to look at that until this most recent study. And in this study we were actually able to look at individuals who were 18 to 39 at the beginning of the study and they were studied in 1968 and they were asked about their beliefs about aging. The stereotype that they had taken in from the culture and then they were followed over the next 40 years. And what we looked at was we would look to see whether there was a relationship between these early expressed area types and whether or not they had a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or a stroke 40 years later. And what we found was that

indeed the younger people who expressed more negative age stereotypes were twice as likely to have a cardiovascular event when after their 60th birthday. That just seems you know if you just listen to it you think how can it be you know my thought is going to lead me if I think a bad thing about older people or getting older that I'm going to end up with a heart attack later on. I mean what what the particulars what what. Well let's first let's talk about some of the stereotyping. When you say stereotype what exactly do you mean or what did they mean. Your study for tonight. Yes so in different studies we've looked at stereotypes different ways but in this study. So I should say that this is the Baltimore long studied aging and so I didn't initially collect the data this was started by people at the National Institute on Aging in 1068 and they asked people a series of questions about their beliefs about aging So for example a negative stereotype somebody who would be in the group of negative stereotypes of aging would agree with the old people are helpless. So they would think of all people as being more helpless whereas somebody in the more positive stereotype group

would have an image more like people are wiser would agree that that sounded more relevant to how they think about aging. Dr. But honestly this is your area of expertise looking at how people come to believe certain things either really covertly or overtly I guess is the way to put it. Can you speak to how those of us who are just out here internalize these stereotypes how we get to them to begin with. Sure I mean first of all I should just say that Becca Levy's work has sort of breathed life into the more basic demonstrations of age bias but that we have been collecting data on for many years now and what we're interested in and age is sort of one example of this is a fundamental difference between what we consciously say we believe and this could be a true statement that we're not talking here about people who might be

deceiving others by saying Oh I think I'm going to say to you I like the elderly even though I secretly harbor that in their feelings. No we're actually quite honestly saying look we have a reasonably favorable feelings towards the elderly we think they're wise and they're kind and we know that there might be issues involving health and so on and that only provokes sympathy but. It's a conscious and a thing than what we have looked at is the other side of this coin we have looked at what goes on in our brain regarding these these these beliefs about social groups that could look quite different than what we are able to say consciously and when we do that when we look at something simple like how quickly can you associate wonderful things words like love and peace and joy and friendship and so on with young people versus elderly and how quickly can we associate negative things word like Devil and balm and vomit and things like that when young and elderly we discover

that 80 percent of the sample of people who we've studied and there are hundreds of. Thousands of these people show a strong preference that only about 6 percent in the sample show a reversal preference of favoring the elderly on these implicit measures and we see this in both men and women we see this in all ethnic groups. We see it in all regions of the country and interestingly we see it in people who are politically both on the left and the right. OK I want to give our listeners a little before I get to Dr. Thomas Perls an idea of what we mean about some of the sort of stereotyping that's out in the public if you will for us to internalize. And here's a television commercial that a lot of people are familiar with it became popular for the medical device life alert which perpetuated one of the most famous catchphrases that we have come to associate with old age. I'm a layman and I thank you again. So there you have it Dr. Pearl. That's something that everybody says and

it only means it is only made in a negative way nobody's using that phrase to indicate anything useful. Right. That's right. And of course that particular one that you just aired is certainly part of all kinds of very unfortunate jokes we've heard. You know I think the finding that back a Dr. Levy has produced in the literature now showing a increase by twice the risk for heart attack and cardiovascular disease generally is phenomenal. And relating it to our own work in the Centenarian Study. What we've looked at is personalities among the centenarians as well as their kids and the kids of course are in their 70s and early 80s and I wonder if part of the finding here relates

to personality and whether one is optimistic or not. The kids scored incredibly low in one domain of personality testing being neuroticism and what this means is that they don't dwell on things they don't internalize things they tend to be humorous and optimistic. And it probably translates into a phenomenal ability to manage their stress very well. And we know that it also means that they would just you know sort of flick off those kinds of internalized stereotypes that some other people are taking with them or that they just don't have those stereotypes because they have a very optimistic view. And the other thing that they scored quite high in is extroversion meaning that they're very apt to have social relationships both intergenerational generationally and and that that probably translates into the ability to establish some pretty important social networks that are important in case you need help but also are very

cognitive stimulating which may have some benefit as well. And and so. You know I think that this optimistic view is very very important. And the question is is what is it a marker of what is happening at a physiological basis which is kind of the question you open the show with that would actually translate into a decrease by half in your cardiovascular risk. And the word stress is used in the study Dr. Levy. All of you doctors and as we know stress can be what you can handle. Right. That's what the doctors tell me is that you know you can be in a lot of quote unquote stressful situations but if you can manage it either by lifestyle or by mental fitness then it doesn't affect you in the same way it may affect some other people who cannot manage it. Is that what you've seen with your centenarians Dr. Perl. Very much it's not the amount of stress a lot of these individuals have had huge amounts of

stress. It's how you manage it that seems so very key. And along the same lines another thing that we have found is a stereotype that you often hear from the medical side with older people as the older you get the sicker you get. And we have found with the centenarians and their kids that they not only age very slowly but they also compress the disability towards the very end of their lives. So it becomes a very optimistic scenario for these people who age well and instead of the older you get the sicker you get what we see is the older you get the healthier you've been. Dr. Banaji what this what Dr. Levy study has said is that younger people start getting these stereotypes and then it impacts them. You know 38 years later or whatever can you tell from your work when it is that we begin to have these stereotypes as a part of our being. When do we start thinking of old people as anxious if you will sort of

not a natural process of sort of much maturation so to speak but something other than that. I would say that although I won't give you a specific age I can say that it's very very early in life that kids begin to notice age as a variable. You know we have studies with children as young as age 3 where they're beginning to notice what age means. So for example a three year old child will pick a food or a piece of clothing or whatever that the younger child picked rather than an older person that because they know that their preferences are more likely to be like the young child rather than the older person. So we know that quite early the differences between different age groups is something that children are quite perceptive about and use in their own decision making. It's a it's hard to say a precise age at which the negative stuff begins to begins to enter but I think for our listeners.

Porton thing is that it's probably happening quite early in life and that that in part that may be happening because of the images that they see but also because of the things that parents might say well just because we all use those and I don't want to be older or anything negative I think it's something that that most adults don't recognize that they are creating children through very subtle kinds of things that they do and say and so they're often surprised when their children have things about the elderly because they can't imagine where they could have picked this up from. All right well we're going to come back to this because it's a fascinating topic and of course I'm getting younger by the moment that's I'm looking at this conversation I'm Calla Crossley and we're talking about old age and how our perceptions of aging influenced the way we age. We're joined by Dr. Thomas Perls He's with the Boston Medical Center. Professor Becca Levy is at the Yale School of Public Health and professor she is at Harvard. Listeners call in if you would give us your thoughts about getting older. Who are your role models.

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Washington D.C. Is it free online at WGBH dot org. I'm Cali Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about getting older and how our perception of what it means to be old can influence how we age. We are joined by Dr. Becca Levy She's a professor at the Yale School of Public Health. We're also joined by Dr. Thomas Perls as in a string of pearls. He is the director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston Medical Center and professor Mazarin biology is a professor of social psychology at Harvard University. How do you think about getting older listeners. What comes to mind when you have a picture of someone getting old. I wanted to share with my guests something that I saw in The New York Times this is really interesting. I I don't know if all of you saw it as a story about honoring its called honoring a long life but she's just 30 plus 71 and it's a story about a woman from

Barbados who is turning 100 in one but refuses to accept this she's 100 and one in Barbados they have a ritual which. Pays attention to the show's expression for those people who are 100 or more. But she is someone who has been living in the United States and she wants nobody to know how old she is so here's a piece of the story says Mae bishop is one hundred and one according to her birth certificate she will turn 100 in two on May 16th. But with the feistiness and independence that have characterized her long life she has steadfastly refused to acknowledge that she has lived a century. This piece is by Kirk simple in the New York Times. This does not surprise you Dr. Perls Or maybe it does your centenarians are happy to be 100. Yeah it makes one think if she's been day lived with these negative stereotypes we've been talking about I would say that many of our centenarians and their families are extremely proud of this milestone. You think that's something you should see somebody who turns

110 that turns out to be quite the party. But you know you had mentioned that down there they they have a celebration. For older people like that they do that in Okinawa Japan as well where if you turn 97 there's a huge parade and celebration for these individuals. And I think that these societies that celebrate these very very old ages are healthier and and it really points to Dr. Levy's research. Dr. Levy do you have any studies that indicate in these other societies where people are celebrating the centenarians and aging in a positive way that they don't get the kind of cardiovascular disease that you saw in your study participants. Well yes we have done some cross-cultural work and we have found that in China for example where more positive stereotypes were expressed that the older individuals there had an advantage on a number of memory tasks so they had better memory performance then people in other cultures had more negative stereotypes and also within cultures you see

a big difference between people who are in sort of subcultures that support positive stereotypes of aging and those that have less positive stereotypes. OK we have several callers let me go to no love from Acton Massachusetts go ahead please. Oh my I'm just wondering how much your studies may have looked into the role of grandparents and the community in which you grew up. I would say I grew up in a small town in western New York. And so I had a Ferrari. Handy of images of older people in the community and church and in my own grandparents. And I don't have any images positive images right. Well diverse images you know OK. It was more just say OK some people are sort of in for it and can't get around very well and are housebound when they're older and others are active and so it's not necessarily one or the other. You know I don't remember negative images

particularly in childhood although when people have said to me Oh your mother lived a long age you probably well I have long said yes but my mother didn't worry about things that she couldn't control and I don't have that gift. Dr. Levy do you want to respond to this. Well yes I think that the families in that people are grew up in and positive role models have had a big impact on the kind of stereotypes that people grew up with and I think also what the caller just mentioned about a diversity of images I think that that is probably a great skill or great resource to have if somebody gets older to draw on a number of different types of images so I believe that those are both things that are are very likely to have very good impacts good prognosis going forward. Thank you very much caller. Okay thank you. All right we have another caller Leanne from Framingham Go ahead please. Hi. I had a question about. How you handle the possible founder of family history and that somebody may have a particular impression of what happens in old

age because their parents have cardiovascular disease and age surely. And you know that obviously would influence their opinion and also influence their risk of developing those early aging problems. I'm going to let Dr. Perls speak to that a little bit because with your centenarian work you have developed a test by the way you can go to our Facebook page and see it. It's called Living to 100 dot com. It's a calculator an age calculator which addresses some of the issues that the caller just raised. Right. A very astute caller. Because we worry about that kind of confounding all the time and we for sure need to go back to Dr. Levy to find out how she handled that. We I would say that the. We know that aging about 30 percent of it is genetic and 70 percent is environmental. That's to get to I would say one's

late 80s which is what we're all aiming for here. I think in this conversation in that there's a number of studies showing that if you have the whole right health related behaviors not smoking regular exercise being at a healthy weight managing your stress well so on and so forth that and probably spending a lot of time with family perhaps even religion that also translates into managing stress for at least the Seventh Day Adventists who have an average life expectancy of 88 years. And with that they seem to delay their disability towards the end of their lives and they are experiencing cardiovascular disease it's not until quite late with the centenarians and even older individuals. One hundred five hundred ten. We're seeing a really important increased role for. Familia ality which is what the callers get into and don't forget that the family

familial holiday isn't just genes we have a lot of things in common in families whether it be smoking or not smoking dietary habits years of education socioeconomic status really impact upon life expectancy I would guess though that about 30 percent getting to really really old age is still going to be a strong genetic component. But this confounding issue is really important as things really do straw run very strongly in some particular families that can be really quite remarkable for the penetration of a dream long. So Dr. Lee do you have what do you say about that genetic component. Yes so that's a great question the caller had and Dr. Perls points out there is a lot of genetic components of getting along jeopardy. In our study Fortunately we did have a measure of familial patterns of cardiovascular disease so we were able to adjust for that. So actually

the collar's question was asked by a reviewer when we first wrote up this paper and we went back to the data set we were very excited to find that the original investigators had included a question about the family history of cardiovascular disease so in our study we were able to look weather above and beyond cardiovascular history in the family. We still see the effects of age stereotypes on individuals on cardiovascular health. Wow that's really that's that's that's a lot I think. I want to do a speaking of these stereotypes give our listeners just another listen to How Stereotypes are perpetuated just casually in our society. And here's comedian comedian Joe DeVito perpetuating a prominent old age stereotype. Well I was I was I don't know. I'm about two miles from the highway entrance and it was always like it's convenient they opened a retirement community in between so they would take me to a half hours to get to the highway. Was did you did you would travel faster if you could feel the cold

hand of death on your shoulder Don't you think you would. I you're right for it. Yeah there was no. Dr. Banaji what what kind of impact does that have. You know see if you can hear everybody laughing and you know I don't think anybody thinks about it they just accept that is reality. That's the remarkable thing about age. They're your type. I mean imagine if something racial had been said or something sexist had been said it would not provoke the same kind of reaction at all and that is one of the intriguing things about age that if you ask people will probably tell you that even though they don't like it there are a stereotype no worse than their age there are times that they worry about that more. But you know actually stereotypes are really among the strongest weapon their your type in almost any culture. Eighty percent on the implicit. Type stuff that we don't consciously know about or can't quite control 80 percent of the

population shows evidence of home type of anti elderly bias. That's a huge and that it turns out that that like certain kinds of biases. This one kind of flies under the radar. We actually don't even worry too much about it and I think it's. But those kinds of biases that we have to be particularly vigilant. Dr. Perls Once again you know I I just I think there is also an extremely pernicious ugly secondary gain or even primary gain side to these stereotypes. I I I'm actually a very loud critic of the anti aging industry which I really equate to old people. And when you say anti-aging industry what this is going to really raise that isn't just screams it's saying that they have potions things like growth hormone or anabolic steroids that stop and reverse aging and make people quote young again. And to me it's virtually all

quackery and hucksterism. But the problem is first and foremost is that they promote these ages and they promote these stereotypes they promote. This is the picture of all people they're all sitting in wheelchairs and Johnny's facing nursing home walls. And that's what they want to first do to scare the heck out of baby boomers. And then. The next thing they say is all but we can cure this. They treat it as a disease and it's really a horrible misleading awful industry. And so it can have and the result is millions and millions of dollars in the pockets of these hucksters. So it can be really some primary gain behind the promotion of some of these stereotypes. It's not just a thing to be set up on stage by a comedian. We're talking with Dr. Thomas Perls director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston

Medical Center and Dr. Bonnie gee who is a professor of social psychology at Harvard University and Dr. Becca Levy who just completed the study at Yale that's the Yale School of Public Health which is linking how we think about aging with cardiovascular disease down the road if we think negatively about it. Let me ask all of you to maybe respond to this is this a form of self loathing then Dr. biology. We're not going to get older so why should we think about that in those terms that that again is a very interesting question because General psychologists find. That people like their own groups better. I mean that's often at the heart of much of the difficulties that we see all around the world where we like our own and we look at the other and say that's scary about this in some ways not as good and with age. We actually see a very different pattern. People who are 60 years old or older show the

same empty elderly bias on the unconscious that we have as young people do. And and so what this means is that more than any other bias that we've looked at the elderly have themselves to some extent internalized that these negative views which is why I think Dr. Perls as Ward and Dr. Levy's work is the interesting because each role is that in the group of the smaller groups of people who are for some reason not doing this you see these battle games in longevity in good health and so on but we have to. Very much on the front of our mind that elderly themselves have incorporated it into their into their lives into their own identity and so on. Dr. Levy excuse me I wonder if you I don't know how you would do this but how how would you factor in the impact of the baby boomers. Because speaking to Dr. Perls this whole anti aging Institute I mean this cohort has been in the front of hand to aging.

They've extended what one thinks about you know being a certain age it's you know I'm reminded of all of the kind of advertising that says stuff like this is not your grandfather's watch you're as young as you feel this is what 60 looks like on and on and on. How in your study could you pay attention to that kind of impact or did you. Well I think there was a lot of hope that the baby boom generation would change these negative stereotypes of aging but I think because of some of the dynamics that we've been talking about because these stereotypes are taken at such a young age and because they're reinforced by television by all sorts of messages in everyday life that I think by the time this cohort is turning 60 and 70 that they have had decades and decades of reinforcement of the negative stereotypes so it's hard to overcome them. But I think it's possible I should say that I don't think that I think people do have the skills and resources to overcome them but I think that we don't yet have the research and all the knowledge of how to do this but I do think it's possible so I think that there is some hope in still changing these negative stereotypes.

We have a caller Delores from Rhode Island Go ahead please. Good morning good morning. There are mine in America but I came from a different era or a regular rebel. Have to deal there for growing up. And again yes I would allow and elderly people all of my life and I still read of old ladies although I am getting there. But people it's a mindset. The modern game of and has not taken time to learn where they came from. People are so busy chasing their and then kill they don't know about. They began it.

My grandmother 80 years till my younger son passed away. He had six children from the age ages of 17 to four. Do you want to tell us how old you are. I don't mind telling you but I won't do it. OK well I'm not very good at riddles but go ahead. Twenty nine thousand two hundred 0 0 on July 20. I'm going to let Dr. Perls figure that out. OK well let me say Delores if I may thank you for your call. That Here's what some of the work of Dr. Perls a centenarian project has shown and I think this is in full sizes what you've just said few centenarians are obese. In the case of men they are nearly always lean substantial smoking history is rare centenarians are better able to handle

stress stress than the majority of people and most centenarian women I found this very interesting have a history of bearing children after the age of 35 years and even 40. So what our caller says is right. Right. Get your mind ready about it. Mine have been one thing I'd like to say my grandmother raised all six of those children and she passed away when she was going 100. Yeah and by the way Dolores you're almost 80 we figured out right. OK there you go. Yeah I don't feel well. People tell me I don't look well whatever. I thank you for your call I'm going to allow Dr. Perls to respond to you. Go ahead Dr. Gross. Well I think there's two things to say is that the older people are very heterogeneous group. And you know we have 50 percent of people over the age of 85 who are don't

have dementia are cognitively intact. And and so on the other hand we have those who aren't doing so well and and we do find very old people will congregate against among those who. Who are doing well and they may avoid those who aren't doing so well. And I think one develops the stereotypes depending upon what they want to pay attention to and what they want to perseverate about it. You know Dr. Levy had and I think rightfully so indicated concern about the stereotypes that baby boomers are making themselves stuck with. But what I am also observing is this as they get older they become offended and they look at themselves and I say well do they say I'm nothing like that. And I for one actually think that we're seeing much less of these stereotypes in the media that is

focused on baby boomers because they're offend and they think that's not me. Well that's what that was Mike. My question was going about what the impact of baby boomers I wondered. But I think Dr. G's point was by the time they get there they're ready to change but leading up to that point they've been holding these stereotypes. I want to put out that as an African-American woman I have a woman I have certain other kinds of stereotypes about aging. You know Black don't crack that's where we come from. So I'm going to look good now I may not be healthy. I'm going to look good longer so I have role models those women and men who you really can't tell their age. I'm reminded of something that Essence magazine which is a magazine for African-American women targeted toward them has every year and they say it's really like guess the ages of these women and I defy you to guess the ages of the women in the magazine they look like they're 20. And you know so it is I think it's helpful for me to have those kinds of role models because I'm telling you I'm flunking your test here girls and I'm not very happy I only get up to 81 on your desk. So I think it's a role models

really do I think have some impact would you not agree Dr. biology. Absolutely. So one of the reasons that we want to bring to the public's awareness the notion that these stereotypes exist that subtle or imperceptible level is so that we can be aware of how pretentious they are and do something about it and it just looks like what you we currently see in Dr. Levy study and I think if Dr. Broder studies are people who for whatever reason that we don't know decided to have this kind of positive. Look there happen to be more extroverted low on the right of whatever that they did to say look I don't believe old people are helpless and so on. But what we'd like to do is to make this a much more routine part of the way in which we encourage everybody to think for once and once we have studies like theirs we can actually show them the data and say look it matters and once you look at those correlations you can say well maybe we can make this into a cause and effect thing. Now

that you can begin to do these things religiously like you exercise but good health good thoughts things that you want to do is part of your daily practice. Dr. Levy quick last word. Has this changed the way you view your own aging. Well I'd like to think that I question the negative stereotypes more now that I've done this on this research. I mean I don't. There are some global and national movements to try to improve the city like the US United States Special Committee on Aging has started to address this too which is but another legislative action is a great way to go too. Thank you very much we've been talking about aging and how our perceptions of getting all can influence our own aging process. Dr. Thomas Perls professor Becca Levy Professor Mazarin when I see thank you all for joining us. Becca Levy is a professor at the Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Thomas Perls is the director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston Medical Center. And Marjorie Minot she is a professor of social psychology at Harvard University. Coming up it's our regular

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I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Kelly Crossley Show. It's time for our regular Monday feature local made good. Well we celebrate people whose creativity and individuality bring honor to New England. And today we are joined by GLENDA LLOYD. He is a community guy who runs city fresh fruits incorporated. It's a local catering business that prides itself on identifying local talent to promote quality business and community development. Now GLENDA LLOYD is the founder and chief executive officer. His brother Sheldon is the vice president of Business Development Glenn is joining me here in the studio and Sheldon's a little bit under the weather but we're hoping to get him on the phone before our time is up. So tell me how it all came together for you too because you're quite the powerhouse now. Well we know that it will be 16 years this year so we will start a small little spot down in Dudley Street area and I was actually teaching

the students and one day looked around to say you know how can we create our own jobs and our own wealth in our neighborhood and and that was the origins and the little that I know that 16 years later I'd still be running this great community. Well listeners just to give you a sense of how big it's grown in those 16 years. You were once in a spot that was 1000 square feet and now it's 11000 or something. Yeah about it. We're excited to say we just moved and you know where at a minute factoring business in the in the day we're making these really good quality meals every day and you're bound by the four walls so we just were able to get into the I call ideal spot. And so we have some good space and great light and some more capacity to grow. Now the lawyers are not chefs. They hire people who are chefs they are business people that put the chefs to work. But I have been looking at your menus and they're quite yummy. Let me just say one of the things that the lawyers specialize in are your ability to do ethnic foods. Tell us about that. Well that yeah that's how we got into the business we were part of the first nation to do the

Latin to the elders in the neighborhood. The folks who are used to you know their authentic food and why not bring it to their homes when they're in their older age and kind of you know fall into your previous guests and from that we expanded. We do actually do a Russian meal we do an Italian menu and even our traditional menu has a little Southern flavor to it. And I'm noticing this on this menu. First of all I've noticed that Jamaican beef patty kind of goes across several of your menus and it made me very hungry. I was looking to see if you brought some listeners he did not want to point that out. Chipotle a glazed beef that's another one Jack Daniels style barbecue ribs and rice and black beans are all across here that we have Sheldon on the line Sheldon Hello. Hello. Congratulations to you and your brother for the fabulous job that you're doing in an area that hires so many local people. Thank you. You very much. And so since I have you on the line before i keep drooling over these menus I thought I would ask you about how it is that you two have

come to hire so much local talent because I know that a lot of your chefs came from right there in the neighborhood so Sheldon Why don't you weigh in on that. Well if we get you know we get a lot of walking. You know we've had people coming in you know and asking you know what we have here they smell the food coming outside the building. They see all the trucks coming out of the facility and they see that big sunshine in the building and folks you know walk through and you know I understand that a lot of talent and you know in the local neighborhoods and they have a place that you know manufacturing making all these meals right there. They'd like to stay close to home. Now I understand that some of your employees have helped you to figure out what to prepare for all of your customers. Tell us about that. Well without a doubt because as you said earlier we you know I can get busy in the kitchen when I have to but yeah right. You're looking like a businessman

you're. Not a trained chef. No but so you know we have folks who are not all you know the trilingual they come from different culture and and they know the different menu items that these folks are used to eating. So they bring a lot and add a lot to you know rounding out our services. So we provide the environment for them. Do you know the canvas is there and they can pay you know on it. There you go. I hear you have many ethnicities in your work or Spanish Cape Verdean Creole Brazilian Haitian. You know all of this is great. You know all over the all over the world let me tell you it's it's like one big happy family and sometimes you know as families go I had to say what we figured out and you know some of the things even the just translation and language and you know we have folks who who are English as Second Language And so but you know a different part of the company sometimes you get away because folks are you know communicating and they're in their native tongue. Who do you hire. How do you hire and do the employees get

opportunities inside to you know how do they move up in other words in your business. Well I mean most of our managers are folks who have worked their way up to the company so the gentleman having our kitchen our logistics manager used to be a driver and so on and so forth so you know we are part of our philosophy to keep growing. So we have more opportunities as we grow we just actually opened up our catering division so we're now doing onsite catering and folks are able to you know do more of that. Actually a logistics manager I have to say he's a baker in his own home country Cape Verde and now is doing our pizza for us so he actually comes in on the weekend and in his own kind of enterprise doing about a thousand pieces of pizza for us. So there are weekends people you have employed have now gone on to do some businesses of their own. That's a question of where you are. That's good. Just to be clear Shelly why don't you tell us all the places that you deliver and the people you deliver food to. Well we deliver to elders who are at home and that you know throughout

greater Boston and we deliver to charter schools in Greater Boston mostly but we also are going you know as North sales. They're going out West as far as West but as far as Brockton right now we do some residential programs. You know what people there are seven you know days a week. And we do child care programs and that you know throughout greater Boston as well. Now both of you brothers had businesses before you came together to build this one. You were doing something called Ginger kids Sheldon. Yes yes yes. I'm from out of New York. Well you know it sounded interesting Tell us a little bit about it. Well that was baking products for kids. It was a educational baking product multicultural because it dealt with baking products from other countries like the baking mix that

would come from other countries. So when you bake through the ginger kid you you know you opened up this package and the package had a little bit about the language a little bit about the culture. Oh you were learning through baking as a gourmet and proud. You and your brother Glenn what you were a landscaping business right at the early age. Tell us about it I love the labor. I love that story. Yeah I think I was 56. No actually you have to have elementary school and I learned that you can if you push a lawnmower. These are the old Sears like the 21 inchers and I figured out wow if I could hire some my friends and for a charge of you know pay X amount of dollars I could actually make some money and you know by the time I go to high school we had a bunch of big dot John Baird lawnmowers and we're doing a whole bunch of you know lawns in the neighborhood just to be clear you started that business when you were 12 years old. Was it 12 Yes that's right. Something or something like that. So you just moved on to it. I wish you would encourage some of these young people now to start a snow shoveling business right now I'm in

desperate need. That's not just a plea for anyone who's 12 in listening to this. What's the best thing about owning this company and seeing the success that you have seen in that community. You know it's it's creating jobs which is a kind of you know the number one issue in the neighborhood and I just I just had a conversation with my younger worker and he said you know you know there's not a have a court record here you know there's not a lot of opportunities for us and the neighborhood so to know that we can you know we come to work every day. And in addition to that it's rich really. You know we're about a quality service and quality product. So we're able to when my grandmother was living in a restaurant all she was getting are food and a lot of the lot of the kids we bring food to other kids of our of our staff so it's really getting a really healthy product out to the neighborhood. Sheldon What's the best thing you've heard one of the best things you've heard from people who have appreciated the business and being in the neighborhood but also the product that you produce. Well I think it's you know customer service and it's

the quality of the product and you know in a lot of cases where service thing the underserved market. So you know we treat you know our clients you know no matter who they are like you know like you know there are you know President you know so they get you know a professional service and you know people say wow you know. And that's great. What would you like to take the business next. I know bigger but yeah bigger more meals you know name that's known you know for doing you know for for servicing the community service. You know as we say you know employing in the community just serve the community and you know where even if somebody worked at City fresh they went somewhere else and they had that you know they came from something fresh that they had a city fresh standard you know that. Well how would you agree. Well I would agree I think you know we

were about I cannot develop in our community we're about quality product and service and I think that you know say fresh is a great platform to do a wide range of types of businesses and how is it changed since your presence how has the community changed since you've been there. Well we actually we spent a lot of time in four corners which is a great stent and now we're now we're back in Iraq so we're back into the neighborhood we actually started and you know where you know it you've got a lot of very good people you know who are loyal who are hard working and you know there's not enough stories on that side of the equation. Right. And folks measuring our neighborhoods. You know it's been it's been steady. It's been it's been it's been a steady enjoyment of the folks. OK so you know we can but we you know we had it in four corners we were in like in the center of the corner so you know we had a we kept our building there. It was always bustling and you know Glenn and I were both involved in the community there on you know various organizations that

help the area develop. So we you know we've always been you know the ground floor. OK I need to know from both of you Sheldon I'll start with you since you're a little bit under the weather. Your favorite food item of your many menus. Don't put me on the spot. I don't like the point here which is the Caribbean. You know Dominican style dish. OK all right. And you Glenn this is so many of you. Name a few and bring in a movie as well names and I got to say they say they help but if we do I mean fried fish. OK. You know actually you know I'm a pizza guy and I think I feature some of the best in Boston. OK well this is been a yummy conversation next time brothers I like to see some in the studio but I'm just sayin. Sheldon Lloyd and Glenn Lloyd of city fresh foods thank you so much for joining us for our local made good feature. Thank you. To learn more about city fresh food you can visit city fresh foods dot com you can keep on top of the Calla

Crossley Show by visiting our website WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. Today's program was engineered by James pick and produced by Chelsea murderers. Our production assistant is an all white knuckle beat. We are production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station for news and culture.