I can see no visible reason for Andrea to be worried about her neck; she looks happy, healthy and vibrant. But like Nora Ephron<\/a> before her, and millions of other middle-aged women, she still is worried. Despite being all too aware how anti-ageing culture<\/a> is driving these feelings about her physical appearance, Andrea feels almost powerless to withstand the urge to \u201cslow down\u201d the ageing process.<\/p>\n In fact, she withheld her last name here because she is a bit embarrassed that she feels this way, despite the fact that how she thinks about her ageing body is commonplace. Those of us in the boomer, gen X and elder millennial generations grew up \u2013 and are now growing old \u2013 with a pervasive cultural pressure to be as young and \u201cperfect\u201d as possible, for as long as possible.<\/p>\n An anthropologist at Brandeis University has made this pressure one of the central tenets of her ethnographic research for well over a decade. Dr Sarah Lamb\u2019s research<\/a> focuses on how people think about and navigate ageing today. Her study participants in Boston are devoted adherents of this new regime of quasi-scientific anti-ageing. They exemplify the idea of \u201cpermanent personhood\u201d \u2013 an anthropological term used to describe how we freeze our self-concept in time, typically at around age 35-40, and expect never to deviate from it as we age.<\/p>\n They do everything in their power to \u201cstay young\u201d. And yet, Lamb has also found that they are increasingly frustrated with the idea of \u201csuccessful ageing\u201d \u2013 a framing that has set up a strict binary between \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad\u201d old age. This paradigm implies that it\u2019s now possible to fail at ageing well.<\/p>\n As a fiftysomething woman, and a medical anthropologist researching the history and culture of anti-ageing, I sympathize with Andrea\u2019s dilemma and Lamb\u2019s ageing research subjects. One of the main differences between us and people who encountered ageism a century ago is that rapid scientific progress has given us more tools to stop time more convincingly than ever. When I see cosmetic products touting the \u201clatest science\u201d behind their formulations \u2013 AHA\/BHA acids to exfoliate or ceramides to reinforce the skin barrier \u2013 I want to believe in these ingredients\u2019 almost magical-sounding ability to \u201crejuvenate\u201d my ageing skin, to transform it back into my age twentysomething skin.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s exactly the problem: lurking behind all these hypermodern anti-ageing claims is the same old ageism.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t always like this. In the 1600s and 1700s, when people aged 65-plus made up just 2% of the total population, older people were revered, as detailed in sociologist and ageing expert Dr Deborah Carr\u2019s 2023 book Aging in America. Fashionable people often aged themselves and lied about being older for social prestige.<\/p>\n After the American revolution, as industrialization made the need for \u201cefficiency\u201d greater and the number of older people increased, things shifted. The social standing of older Americans took a big hit as a new \u201cyouth culture\u201d emerged.<\/p>\n By the mid-1800s, derogatory terms like \u201cold coot\u201d had become common. A recent linguistic study<\/a> found that \u201cage stereotypes have become more negative in a linear way over 200 years. Around 1880, age stereotypes switched from being positive to being negative.\u201d This gradual shift correlates to changes like the rise of microbiology and the more recent boom in scientific research<\/a> on biological ageing.<\/p>\n Russian scientist Elie Metchnikoff, widely regarded as the \u201cfather\u201d of immunology, coined the term gerontology and gave the science of anti-ageing its first boost in the early 1900s. \u201cI believe that it will be possible in the future to prolong life beyond the limits which it reaches in the present day,\u201d Metchnikoff said in a 1904 interview. \u201cMan attained a much greater age in biblical times than he does now, and the efforts of science should be directed to bringing about a similar state of things nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n But anti-ageing culture as we know it didn\u2019t begin in earnest until the middle of the last century, after advances in modern medicine made it possible for a record number of people to reach advanced ages. In the 1961 inaugural issue of the Gerontologist, chemist Dr Robert Havighurst coined the term \u201csuccessful ageing\u201d \u2013 the concept that would end up driving the new ageing-focused field of gerontology.<\/p>\n double quotation markAgeing well or poorly now seemed like a personal choice, rather than a natural outcome<\/p>\n Ageing well or poorly now seemed like a personal choice, rather than a natural outcome. Although ageing had never been fully welcome, it was now officially \u201cbad\u201d to get old. We started saying that visibly ageing people had \u201clet themselves go\u201d and buying books with titles like 1986\u2019s How to Live Longer and Feel Better or 2010\u2019s Stay Young, Stay Fit.<\/p>\n Longevity culture is the most recent iteration. Harvard\u2019s Sinclair Lab<\/a> \u2013 run by one of the most visible longevity advocates, geneticist Dr David Sinclair \u2013 is dedicated to the idea of reprogramming cells to be \u201cyoung\u201d again in order to \u201creverse\u201d ageing. One research hub, the USC-Buck Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Biology of Aging,<\/a> has the goal of extending the human healthspan (the amount of years we can live disease-free) by digging into the biological processes of ageing.<\/p>\n On its surface, there is nothing wrong with the concept of longevity. It\u2019s perfectly reasonable to want to live as well as possible, for as long as possible. Occasionally, however, modern advocates often make it seem as though death is now optional. Anti-ageing gurus have turned themselves into modern alchemists<\/a>, questing for the scientific elixir of eternal youth. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were caught on a hot mic last year talking about immortality<\/a> as though it were inevitable. Google\u2019s chief futurist, Ray Kurtzweil, has talked<\/a> about the certainty that we will be able to \u201covercome disease and ageing\u201d.<\/p>\n But this hope that modern science can halt ageing is simply ageism wearing a lab coat.<\/p>\n Cultural critic and Guardian columnist<\/a> Jessica DeFino is suspicious of this framing too. \u201cLongevity is just the latest word that we\u2019re applying to regular old anti-ageing ideology,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n DeFino links the terminology shift back to the fashion magazine Allure\u2019s 2017 announcement<\/a> that it would no longer use the term \u201canti-ageing\u201d. Editor Michelle Lee argued that by using it, \u201cwe\u2019re subtly reinforcing the message that ageing is a condition we need to battle\u201d.<\/p>\n Allure\u2019s decision quickly sent ripples throughout the multibillion-dollar anti-ageing industry. But the industry did not crash; it simply pivoted. DeFino recalls that brands scrambled to change their labeling to avoid being seen as ageist. Instead, companies started underlining the scientific basis behind their products. The market for anti-ageing products is currently valued at $78bn and growing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, brands use terms like pro-ageing, non-ageing and preventative ageing, DeFino said: \u201cEven the idea of ageing gracefully became a marketing tool.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese terms all sound more positive, more scientific,\u201d DeFino said, \u201cbut when you get down to the formulation level and the purpose level, it\u2019s all anti-ageing.\u201d<\/p>\n The ultimate goal of anti-ageing and longevity is to stop normal biological processes, so any signs of ageing \u2013 grey hair, wrinkles, saggy skin \u2013 mean that you\u2019re failing. But DeFino argues that failure is the ultimate success of the anti-ageing industry. There is no end to ageing, apart from death. There\u2019s always another product to buy, another procedure to undergo, another supplement to take.<\/p>\n Before Metchnikoff and the development of cell biology, research into anti-ageing and immortality was largely considered \u201ccrank\u201d or fringe science. Now it is wholly mainstream. Hundreds of biotech companies are focused on longevity and anti-ageing, and many popular social media influencers are cashing in on the nascent science.<\/p>\n The sheer number of quasi-scientific products being sold as \u201canti-ageing\u201d now \u2013 many of them piggybacking on geroscience findings \u2013 makes longevity seem more accessible than ever.<\/p>\n The diabetes drug Metformin<\/a>, which was initially found to extend the healthspan and lifespan of male laboratory mice, is now often used off-label <\/a>to promote increased cellular repair functions and inhibit a key pathway involved in cell senescence, even though there is still no convincing clinical evidence that it has the same effect in humans. Popular anti-ageing experts and entrepreneurs like Dr Peter Attia and Bryan Johnson (whose X bio reads \u201cConquering death will be humanity\u2019s greatest achievement\u201d) admit to having used the immunosuppressant drug rapamycin off-label in an effort to slow ageing, despite little longitudinal scientific evidence<\/a> that it works.<\/p>\n When Dr Abou Farman, an anthropologist and professor at the New School, began his ethnographic research on the science of immortality, scientific researchers were regularly ridiculed for even being associated with it, and reported hiding their involvement. Now, with growing interest and an influx of money from Silicon Valley, that\u2019s no longer the case.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Well Actually<\/p>\n Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n double quotation markWhen the world feels overwhelming … people really double down on all this<\/p>\n \u201cThe researchers started telling each other to focus on the small bits of the science,\u201d Farman said. \u201cDon\u2019t go out and talk about living forever; talk about how our knees are going to live forever. It\u2019s part of the anti-ageing utopia.\u201d<\/p>\n As a social scientist, Farman sees something deeper behind this powerful wave of anti-ageing rhetoric. \u201cWe can\u2019t ignore the rise of all this \u2013 longevity, immortality \u2013 at a time when there is also a widespread fear about the end of the world,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe desire and the anxiety are coiled together.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Farman, research psychologist Dr Ashley Lytle connects our current obsession with anti-ageing back to how we\u2019re coping \u2013 or failing to cope \u2013 with the chaos of our time. We may not be able to halt greenhouse gas emissions or do anything about international conflicts, but maybe we can do something about ageing. \u201cWhen the world feels overwhelming and like we don\u2019t have much agency,\u201d Lytle said, \u201cpeople really double down on all this.\u201d<\/p>\n Lytle studies ageism and is my colleague at Stevens Institute of Technology. Over the past decade of teaching college students, we have both noticed internalized ageism surfacing at much younger ages than in past generations. Young women and pre-teens are buying anti-wrinkle products<\/a>. Early twentysomethings are blaming sore backs or knees on their \u201cold age\u201d and joking about having \u201cdementia\u201d if they forget something.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have this rampant idea now that to show any signs of ageing is something that we want to stave off or avoid for as long as we can,\u201d Lytle said, \u201cpotentially forever.\u201d After all, who wants to die?<\/p>\n This logic is increasingly being packaged for younger and younger cohorts. \u201cThe people in the ads are usually younger,\u201d Lytle said. \u201cThey use pretty inflammatory language sometimes, like: \u2018Join me in the battle against ageing.\u2019 Like it\u2019s a war instead of a natural part of the human experience or existence.\u201d<\/p>\n Gen Z and gen Alpha have a unique cultural milieu; much of their daily digital lives exist on Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. The internet ideal, DeFino argues, is permanent youthfulness. Now, ageist beauty standards are being dressed up in new, positive-sounding scientific terminology and packaged as \u201cself-care\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to launder these anti-ageing ideals through the language of empowerment,\u201d DeFino said. \u201cIt\u2019s reached such a peak that those two things are now synonymous in the cultural imagination, even though they couldn\u2019t be farther from each other in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just younger generations. Negative ageing stereotypes on social media may have increased every generation\u2019s desire to disassociate ourselves from our own chronological ages, according to research conducted by Dr Patricia Kahlbaugh, a developmental psychologist and professor of psychology at Southern Connecticut State University who researches how internalized ageism affects different age groups.<\/p>\n In a small study<\/a> of nearly 400 people aged 19-77, subjects who had higher levels of ageing anxiety, especially fears about the decline of their physical appearance and a loss of social status, were more likely to say that their \u201cbest self\u201d was further in the past after viewing ageist memes. The \u201cbest self<\/a>\u201d reflects a specific time \u2013 past, present or future \u2013 when we felt, feel or think we will feel the most valued and at our peak.<\/p>\n Baby boomers and gen X are entering their latter decades much more focused on ideas like their \u201chealthspan\u201d and longevity, said Kahlbaugh.<\/p>\n Unlike prior older generations, who viewed retirement, leisure and relaxation as a reward for a lifetime of hard work, they don\u2019t see old age as a time of inactivity. Instead, they want to remain active and able to work and play hard well into their 80s and 90s. Kahlbaugh thinks that boomers\u2019 cultural approach to ageing might result in denial about ageing, and a desire to look and feel younger.<\/p>\n Everything else has bent to the might of their collective will \u2013 so why not ageing, too? I\u2019m gen X, and from what I\u2019ve encountered personally, as well as in my nascent research project on cultural attitudes on ageing, most of us are adamant that we are far \u201cyounger\u201d than any other middle-aged cohort that has ever existed. If there is such a thing as \u201ccollective denial\u201d, we are in the midst of it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to fight ageism,\u201d DeFino said. \u201cWe have to address why looking younger boosts your status in society and opens up opportunities on the political, social, economic level.\u201d<\/p>\n Lamb agrees and argues that our biggest mistake is to pretend that we can stop the process of getting old. When we do age, despite adhering to \u201cscientific\u201d advice, we may experience disappointment, shock or embarrassment.<\/p>\n It can be hard to reject anti-ageing rhetoric. If visibly ageing is tied to job discrimination<\/a>, less cultural clout and social standing<\/a>, it makes sense to try to stave it off \u2013 to get the neck lift rather than suffer the social consequences. When you add in other common fears about ageing \u2013 loss of independence, mobility or memories \u2013 it\u2019s a perfect storm of anxiety.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to protect through all this anti-ageing or healthy ageing is a sense of our core,\u201d Lamb explained. Over the last decade, she\u2019s noticed that more older people are keeping up with the science of ageing to help them preserve the health and function of their middle-aged years. They want diet and exercise advice, but they don\u2019t necessarily want to \u201clive forever\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey would rather be dead than old,\u201d Lamb said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want too much medical intervention or to be hooked up to machines. They don\u2019t want to be a burden. They don\u2019t want to be in pain.\u201d<\/p>\n Lamb would like to see a culture that embraces some of the normal losses of ageing as meaningful. We could view wrinkles and grey hair as signs of our lived experience, or slowing down as a chance to finally relax and be with loved ones.<\/p>\n Lytle, my research psychologist colleague, is more pointed when I ask her about alternatives to anti-ageing.<\/p>\n \u201cResearchers in this space have a phrase we like to use a lot,\u201d Lytle said. \u201cAnti-ageing is anti-life. Ageing happens from the second we\u2019re born; we just call it \u2018development\u2019. Ageing is part of life itself. You can\u2019t get rid of it, and I don\u2019t think we should try to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrea holds a PhD in literature and works for a non-profit in Dallas. She\u2019s in her late 40s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-549678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782330911_688_500.jpg\")
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