Outdoor Playground for Boomers
Lina Ko February 12th, 2010
According to The Canadian Press, London, U.K., will soon launch a park for the capital’s aging baby boomers. This specially-designed outdoor playground will offer low-impact exercise equipment to help older people improve their balance and flexibility and tone muscles that may not have been tested for decades. The Westminster City Council is providing funding for the playground, which is planned for London’s popular Hyde Park. The new playground, due to be built by this spring, will have six pieces of equipment bought in Denmark, including a stationary bicycle, a cross-trainer and a sit-up bench.
This seems like such a great concept as every park usually has a children’s playground, but very few have playgrounds for adults. I’ve always observed that seniors are often behaving like kids, and for them to have their own playground just makes a lot of sense. But once again, are we confusing boomers with seniors? Is this playground targeting seniors and the elderly, or are they aiming at boomers who refuse to acknowledge they are old? It’s always a good idea to encourage older people to exercise and socialize. But to name it the ‘Hyde Park Senior Playground’ even though it welcomes anyone of any age to use it is a kiss of death to attracting boomers.
More and more fitness clubs are catering to boomers who found gyms too intimidating in the first place with too much firm flesh. It will be interesting to see how successful the Hyde Park playground will be for boomers rather than seniors.
