Baby Boomers may have a reputation for being self-absorbed, but as it turns out, we're going to need plenty of help in that department in the years to come.
According to a report last week in Bloomberg Businessweek, we're on track to out-pace babies in creating demand for absorbent diapers sometime within the next ten years. Looks like keeping dry will be as challenging as staying spry by the time I join my peers in the 4 p.m. buffet line at the Golden Corral.
According to the report, sales of adult diapers are expected to grow by 48 percent between last year and 2020, compared with a 2.6 growth rate for baby diapers. Birth rates are falling while life spans grow longer, as the main wave of Boomers slowly surfs its way toward the sunset, giving grownup-size paper pants providers a boom of their own, since babies tend to grow out of their diapers while incontinent adults don't.
To plug into the burgeoning market for products to protect the wet and weary, manufacturers have launched ad campaigns designed to make leaky adult bladders seem commonplace, if not chic, featuring attractive models in their 40s or younger doing a variety of activities while presumably wearing splash-and-trash undergarb. The recent "Great American Try-On" promotion by Depends featured footballers DeMarcus Ware, 33, of the Denver Broncos and Wes Welker of the Los Angeles Rams, 34, suiting up in Real Fits.
I see where Depends is going with this, but I'm pretty sure it won't be until I actually spring a leak - or get a cash offer matching Ware's or Welker's - that I'll experience an urge to try on emergency-use underwear.
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In other news involving pro athletes last week, Canadian-born Utah Jazz forward and UK alum Trey Lyles inadvertently highlighted at least one American's ignorance of geography soon after Fox Sports announcer Mark Followill correctly identified him, during a game against Dallas, as the first person from Saskatchewan to play in the NBA. "Of course, that region's known for being home to a lot of sasquatches," his broadcasting partner Jeff Wade observed, putting his bigfoot in his mouth. "That's what it's named for."
"Uh, I don't think it is," Followill mildly corrected. "I don't think that's what it's named for."
The exchange created a wave of mild amusement and a flutter of Twitter activity back in Saskatchewan, which, by the way, draws its name from the Cree word for swift-flowing river.
Provincial premiere Brad Wall probably came up with the zingiest response to the Wade's remarks.
"Saskatchewan's a hotbed for sasquatches like Utah's a hotbed for jazz," he Tweeted.