Society has made great strides against racism and sexism, but there’s one -ism people still don’t want to talk about — ageism.

And it’s the one -ism that will someday affect us all.

One of the first people to not only be bothered by ageism but to actually start doing something about it was Lynn Peters Adler. In the 1990s, she produced the first documentary on centenarians for PBS, she founded the National Centenarian Awareness Project and she’s the author of “Centenarians: The Bonus Years.”

Lynn says she thinks people ignore ageism because of fear. They fear aging, and they try to avoid the reality of getting older by not thinking about and not being around older people.

When we do that, Lynn says, we’re really shortchanging ourselves for our own futures.

She says she focuses on centenarians because they’re the rock stars of the age wave. They’re interesting, people get excited to hear their stories and they show us what’s possible if we live well and take care of ourselves when we’re younger.

Lynn describes the first time she encountered ageism when she was a young girl shopping with her grandmother and explains how it affected the course of her entire life.

Plus, she reveals the five traits all centenarians have in common and how you can start adopting their habits today.

To learn much more about Lynn’s research and her Centenarian Awareness Project, click here.