Cursed old age | The Press

Have you noticed how social media and magazines people excessively exploit the very disadvantageous photos of certain aging stars? The new trend is to contrast a shot where the star is at the peak of her beauty with another where she appears wrinkled, puffy and ravaged.

I have images of Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot in mind. We first see them as they compete with Apollo and Aphrodite in their early twenties, then they appear with their current faces in very bad photos which reveal creases and crevices everywhere.

I also came across Kim Basinger, beautiful as day in her early youth, alongside an image where she looks like a dried prune. I also saw the two headliners of CHIPS, Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada, first ultra-sexy in their motorcycle police uniform, then with graying hair, a few extra pounds and a sagging face. Even Sarah Jessica Parker, not yet in her sixties, is subjected to this terrible game!

And woe to those who try to stop the clock of life with surgeries and botox, they get the bonus of mean-spirited comments.

What do we mean with these comparison games? That even the stars cannot stand the test of time? Because it must be said, we take great pleasure in looking at these images. When we see photos of Goldie Hawn with loose skin or Leonardo DiCaprio in a swimsuit with a belly, we say to ourselves: “Quin toé, you’re not better than me! You made me sweat so much with your beauty, it’s your turn to check out! »

You should know that it is very easy to take photos of people and show them in a bad light. Just how easy it is to fake them. In fact, this is all linked to perfidious exploitation on the part of these magazines and websites.

I noticed that during the last year, French gossip magazines always showed Céline Dion with an emaciated face, her neck pulled, and a blank stare. Céline was not doing well and it had to be expressed. But since we know that she is doing better, the photos of her with good makeup and hair in a Balenciaga outfit have returned, as if by magic.

In fact, these “before and after” photos tell us that old age is something ugly, that it is an inevitability, a punishment.

This obsession with youth and old age is reaching a peak. This is evidenced by these applications or filters which project our current appearance over time. In one click, we take 20 or 30 years. This allows users to scream in horror. And it is up to the beauty industry to affirm that it is not too late to act. As a result, anti-wrinkle creams for teenagers are now sold.

There are even, get this, skin products and massage techniques intended… for babies. Mothers who are obsessed with the radiance of their children’s complexions are called “serum moms”. The magazine Technikart recently talked about a $125 “smoothing facial” for kids.

This madness around the fear of aging obviously has its share of excesses. A crazy theory circulating on TikTok claims that Generation Z is aging faster than millennials. This is what content creator Jordan Howlett spreads in a video viewed 20 million times. He justifies this phenomenon by the stress which would hit his generation more.

I was reading comments on a discussion forum about our fear of aging. By and large, people are okay with the idea of ​​their skin wilting, their bellies or butts expanding, and their hair thinning. What we fear is physical decline, illness and an inevitable approach to the end.

For many people, aging means a loss of autonomy, dependence on others, a reduction in income, the prospect of a depressing retirement home or a CHSLD, loneliness, deterioration of physical abilities, departure. of the spouse, members of one’s family or friends and, above all, the feeling that old age makes them useless.

The prospect of growing old is already heavy enough to bear, why add to it? This is what I deplore with this overabundance of photos where old age is shown as a defect. However, the more we maintain a positive image of old age, the more likely we are to live happier and older. It’s not me who says it, these are serious studies.

In 2003, researchers Hannah Kuper and Michael Marmot surveyed 10,000 civil servants in London. They asked the question: when does old age begin? They then followed the respondents for many years.

The results published by the BBC and reported by the site Slate show that people who thought old age started early were more likely to have a heart attack or experience health problems six to nine years after answering the questionnaire. On the contrary, those who had imagined a late onset of old age preserved their health and remained in better physical shape.

Another study was carried out over a long period of time by Becca Levy, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, with more than a thousand people aged at least 50. The results point in the same direction. People who had a positive view of their own aging lived an average of 23 years after participating in the study. On the other hand, those who had expressed negative ideas lived on average around fifteen years after answering the questions.

In short, the age we attribute to old age and the way we perceive it have consequences on the way we age. By presenting old age as a decline, we contribute to shortening the lives of those who only dream of one thing, to prolong it.