Study Shows That Older People Feel Younger Than They Actually Are
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A recent study shows that older people are likely to feel about 13 years younger than their actual age.
The participants in the study, all 70 and over and residents at various assisted living service facilities, also thought they looked about 10 years younger than their numerical age, with women having a much more realistic view of their appearances, perceiving themselves to be closer to their actual age than men.
The results of the study have implications beyond the psychological. Past research has shown that feeling youthful is linked with better health and longer life, the researchers say.
The study analyzed information collected from surveys of 516 men and women age 70 and older who participated in a former study that was conducted in Berlin. The survey tracked how seniors’ perceptions about age and their satisfaction with aging changed over a six-year period ending in 1998.
The researchers also assessed how old people thought they looked by asking them how they felt when they looked in the mirror. Participants indicated an age on a scale that ranged from 0 to 120 years.
Women saw themselves as about four years older than their male peers. There are several likely reasons for this gender gap in subjective physical age. One is that women may be more aware of their appearance than men, especially given the negative stereotypes of older bodies, according to the researchers.
Another possible reason for the gender difference is that men typically die at a younger age compared with women. So the oldest men would’ve been in the best physical shape to live so long. Those men who live for a very long time are generally in better physical condition than other men, so they’re usually much stronger than the women physically, and they may actually look better than many 80-year-old women physically.
Participants also rated the extent to which they agreed with statements about satisfaction with aging. Results showed that initially, men were more satisfied than women with their own aging. But over the six-year period, men’s satisfaction decreased more than women’s did.
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system in the assisted living industry. For more information, please visit hospiceconnecticut.com or call 1-800-768-8221. Sky Palma is a freelance staff writer.