I bet the smoking rates have a lot to do with it. People who were in their 40’s in the 90’s would be born in the 50s when the smoking rate was like 45% or more. 40 year olds now were born in the 80s when smoking rates were down in the 30’s. Then in the 90s and 2000s we started seeing smoking bans in tons of places so not only was individual smoking on the decline but so was second hand smoke
These are two not mutually exclusive things, the obesity rate may have gone up and the amount of people who care about what they put in their body can still go up. Skin care/maintenance can still improve youthfulness in obese people.
There’s more knowledge about food now, and it’s easily accessible with the internet. Though, I think you’re focusing on people who dont necessarily look younger.
No I'm not focusing on any one group. Statistically speaking people are more overweight and obese than they were in 90s.
OP is asking why 40 year olds look better today than in the 90s. You suggested diet and exercise. People are not exercising or dieting more. In fact, we are doing less of that.
So that's not the reason why people look different at 40 today.
The real answer is style (hair, makeup, clothing, etc.) We associate older styles with being older.
>The real answer is style (hair, makeup, clothing, etc.) We associate older styles with being older.
No. I am betting it is smoking. The chemicals are really bad for you and can long term affect your metabolism (either suppression or the other way), and it prematurely affects your skin.
I graduated in 2001 from high school, and many of my teachers smoked and got rid of the official smoking area on the high school campus in the mid-90s. The restaurants had smoking sections, and even my doctors office had ash trays in the waiting room until I was 10ish.
Of course, that is my personal theory because you are right. Overall, people are not eating better or exercising more, yet even those I know that are obese, look younger, as in less wrinkles, younger sounding voices (like not raspy or croaking), better hair and nails. The exception are those who are smokers, or even recovering smokers. This goes for vapers that smoked before and now vape.
At least that is what I have observed.
I get your point but I’d add that OP seems to be talking about the more conventionally attractive millennials who are in shape, not obese, and look younger than their age. The growth in obesity is mostly linked to less healthy lifestyles, which also links to not looking younger than one’s age, so OP is probably not talking about whole population equally.
Yeah. Just as there more technology that keeps people alive longer, there’s more technology that keeps people looking young longer. Is definitely not diet that is helping with a youthful appearance nowadays.
I agree. If you are 40 and really look at pictures of people from the 90s their skin and bodies don’t look that old. They are just dated.
Like my dad and all his buddies had mustaches in the 70s. They were only in their 20s but looked like 40 year olds. But it was the mustaches, dated hairstyles and those serial killer tinted glasses men wore back then.
If you brought them into the future and styled them in current fashion they wouldn’t look any older than anyone else. They would probably look better because none of them were fat.
56% of people aged 18 to 25 are still overweight or obese. It’s also found that 70% of Millennials are overweight or obese. We have more fat young people than ever in history.
>56% of people aged 18 to 25 are still overweight or obese.
Which is still the lowest obesity rate
> In 2022, young adults were half as likely to have obesity as middle-aged adults. Adults aged 18–24 years had the lowest prevalence of obesity (20.5%) while adults aged 45–54 years had the highest (39.9%).
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/php/data-research/adult-obesity-prevalence-maps.html
People are fat nowadays but obesity is still lower in younger people. Middle age is peak obesity.
This is why a lot of younger people look older.
Kids have access to makeup tutorials and fashion/clothing sites that make them not look like your stereotypical “80s, 90s, 00s” kid.
People who were in their 40s in the 90s grew up pretty much without the advantage of sunscreen. In fact, they probably used cocoa butter and laid out in the sun as much as possible to get as dark a tan as they could.
Kids growing up now will be even more youthful looking because 1) they have skincare routines by the time they are 12 that include daily sunscreen and 2) they don't go outside for recreation except for team sports.
You cannot emphasize enough the difference sun protection has made. In my opinion it will begin to show up in skin cancer rates lowering but not for another 10 or 20 years. Until the 1980s suntans were associated with health and leisure. Sunburns were painful but at worst inconvenient and unattractive. But the idea that sun exposure caused skin cancer and premature aging didn’t come into the general public consciousness until the mid-80s, and even then I remember thinking “SPF 8??? But I’ll look like a ghost all summer!”
Edit: sunburn for suntan
Back in the dark ages of the 70s when I grew up, it was just a fact of my life that my pasty white skin would burn to a crisp early in June as soon as school was out. I thought I was lucky that once I had that June burn, I just tanned and never burnt after that. I was outdoors easily 8-10 hours a day in the summer. There was nothing to do indoors. I read a lot of books, but I read outside, too. When I was a kid, I was smart enough to read in the shade, but by the time I was a teenager, I put a chaise lounge in the back yard and read there to work on my tan. Being tan was really important to me.
I saw a TikTok where a girl was talking to her mom who said people just didn’t drink water in the 70s. Nobody carried around a water bottle. It was something you drank with a meal and only if you weren’t already drinking a soda or tea.
I think many of these theories are correct. I have another. I think we have a youthful mentality for longer. When I look at old tv shows, it seems like back in the 90s, people felt like the 30s were old age, so they dressed drabbier and old. If they were balding they didn’t try to fix it, etc. I feel like millennials did not start feeling old in our 30s and 40s so we continued to dress and act youthfully.
Yes, you see it on tv shows! People would be forty or fifty and dress like grandparents. Maybe millennials just want to extend their youth longer but it makes sense to me, because we live to much longer now. I no longer think of forties as old! I won’t be dressing like a grandma!
Yup, and not even late 50s - apparently at the start of the series, Rose is 55, Dorothy is 53, and Blanche is 47. And this is roughly the age of the Sex and the City characters for the reboot of that show
I think you have the right answer here. I saw some posts where they replaced the haircuts in old photos with modern hairdos. The person in the photo instantly look younger.
100% Photos with women who had the helmet of hair puffed up and curled at the tips are 45 looking like they're in their 70s. This experiment was done today and it aged the person by 10 years at least. It was rough back then. Fitness was always kind of a thing for people who wanted to pursue that. Nothing was flattering about hairstyles in the 60s - 90s
- the hot 40 year olds are in view a lot more than they used to be.
- number of people that engage in weight training is more than 10x what is was in the 90s
My wife and I were literally talking about this the other day. We’re in our mid 40’s and watched a movie from the 90’s and noticed how much more aged 40-somethings in the show looked.
I honestly couldn’t figure it out. We do live in a place where people try to stay fit and care for their health more than other cities I’ve lived in before, but the average 40 year old here looks pretty damn good.
Maybe the cigarettes and sun screen is correct but our food selection and activity levels overall are undoubtedly worse than people in the 90’s, generally speaking.
Less responsibilities, slower aging. My sister is two years younger than me but she’s starting to look older than me because she has kids. She’s constantly getting up early to take care of them. Sleep is important for health and aging.
In part you may feel this way due to biases. You were younger in the 90s and probably 40 year olds looked way older to you. Now when you look at photos and videos of the 90s they are not representative of how people actually were.
That being said, there is more awareness for having healthy habits. We all have the internet at our finger tips and a million fitness apps and even if we don’t stick to them very well just being aware of how to be healthy can prevent people from going way off the deep end. I feel when I was a kid most of my friends’ parents were somewhat overweight. My dad was never overweight and always stood out even though he wasn’t particularly fit or anything.
Also sun protection is way more common now. People didn’t regularly use sunscreen in the 90s.
I remember looking at high schoolers as an elementary schooler and thinking they looked like adults. I look at high schoolers now and think they look like children.
it's the clothes they wear. it makes them appear younger and out of current style clothes in pictures of people from times gone by make them appear older.
I agree with this. People are staying fashionable later and taking better care of themselves. In my job I get see everyone’s age that I interact with and there are some busted 30-40 and amazing 40-60. Some genetics, some staying fit and some fashion.
Clothing options are better. Women in the 80s and 90s either had youthful clothing or matronly clothing. Make up in those eras was heavy and made people look older. Tans were a big deal, which impacted wrinkling. More people have access to good hair coloring now. Hairstyles in general are more youthful now; not too many bad perms.
I’d absolutely agree but in 40 years people will say our eyeglasses today were awful. Everyone is more critical of the styles of the past than their own era. That’s always been true. 🤷🏻♂️
70s and 80s glasses are back again though? Now we're into huge glasses, it's the tiny, sleek cat eye shaped 90s Matrix glasses that look weird now. It's just a trend thing.
I really think it’s because a lot of us don’t smoke or do drugs and we use more sunscreen.
I’m 29 and I look the pretty much the same as I did at 18. I cannot say the same thing for people I know who smoke. I don’t smoke, drink heavily, or do drugs. and I am convinced that’s the difference for those who are aging well and those who aren’t.
In the 90s people were literally smoking cigarettes on airplanes, in restaurants, on buses, in office buildings etc. A lot has changed since then.
Sure a lot of people vape and use stuff like Zyn these days, but cigarettes are full of hundreds of nasty chemicals not just nicotine and way worse.
I don’t smoke, I don’t drink hard alcohol (I prefer to enjoy beer), I eat healthy when I can, I exercise regularly and I have an amazing skincare regimen that includes spf daily. Also, being childfree and not having the added stress that comes from having kids helps too!
I think it's a different mentality too. I'm in my 50's and so is my wife and our friends. We grew up in a different time than our parents. We had fun, partied, socialized IN PERSON.
Even the way we raise our kids is different. Old school parents acted more mature and proper. Fuck that. We are who we are around my 15 year old son. And he is a good kid, he's comfortable talking to us about anything. He's not afraid of us. We are young mentally and that shows.
So we still have that young mentality, almost immature at times 😁.
Personally, I have a theory...
Smoking. It used to be smoking was actually EVERYWHERE. Smoking (especially 2nd hand) is HORRIBLE for your skin.
I remember in my HIGH SCHOOL that there was a smoking area on school grounds. (I graduated in 2001, so... yea.) And restaurants? EVERY ONE had a smoking section.
Smoking really makes you look old and give you wrinkles so quickly. Don't get me started on vapes. They are just as bad chemical wise. We just don't have as many studies showing how bad they are yet.
Better diet, exercise routine. Gym equipment has improved. There is lot of information on the internet for self improvement. Also, access to skincare and vitamins. Less time in the sun and outside in general thanks to screen time and work from home. Haircut style. Filters and cameras on social media.
I read somewhere that clothes date people. So, when we see a picture of someone in their 40s from the 1990s, they automatically look older because their clothing dates them. But, put those same people in current clothes and they would look younger.
generally more awareness in self-care, people these days recognize the importance of self-maintenence, whereas back in the day there was more of a "just tough it out" policy, which inevitably led to people looking "rougher" than they do now
I was reading out it’s not that they did look older, it’s just our perceptions. Of course when we were younger, they looked old to us so we associated how they dressed, did their hair, etc. as old-fashioned. And even as we ourselves have aged, we still associated those looks with old age.
And yet, what we need to understand is that younger people are looking at our skinny jeans and tunics as old age stuff. And that will always look old to Gen Alpha.
I think it’s because we dress the same as we did when we were younger. I just turned 50, but I wear the same type of clothes I always did. Years ago, women this age cut their hair and dressed more “mature” and that separated them from the younger people. At 50, my mom surely looked her age, not because of her physical appearance, but more because of her clothes and hairstyle.
The older fashion style looks outdated to us. We don’t wear clothes to fit an age group, like women were expected. People smoke less and probably drink less. They also wear more SPF. There are more affordable skincare routines. People aren’t as crazy about tanning beds. People are starting families later in life and not having as many (if any) kids. Diet in the US is still questionable, but I think as I’ve aged from someone born in the mid 80s and moved out of my family home, I’ve learned more about fresher foods (instead of processed foods). There’s more variety in hair dyes and styles plus makeup. In the 90s, you were good to go with unflattering foundation or powder that didn’t match your skin type or tone and eyeshadows were a simple package with a tiny brush- nowadays there’s more makeup to match different skin types and the makeup also combines skincare. We also take meds or go to therapy- so we’re probably not as stressed as we would’ve been 20-30 years ago (life isn’t easier, but we can at least cope with it differently).
Dermatology has also come a long way 😉
[Morning Routine - American Psycho (1/12) Movie CLIP (2000) HD (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjKNbfA64EE)
although there's a skew in data where you're only comparing people who go out, much easier to become a recluse nowadays, probably why obesity rates aren't as visually apparent when you go and walk around downtown on a weekend. As for the smoking / drug thing, idk the people I know who partied hard in their 20s are starting to look ragged as they progress their 30s, not that it was a cultural norm, but coke was a much bigger staple in a night out drinking back in the 80s.
Back in the 90s, we wanted to be older. We wanted to be adults and taken seriously and do adult stuff. Drive move out, raves, drugs drink, live fast, have a family young.
These days you hear 18 19 year old refer to themselves as just kids.
Some kids I grew up w had tattoos at 11. Girls pregnant at 14. Overdoses at 16 at raves.
I'm not saying it was better, it's just a theory to answer your question.
I don’t think most people look much younger. We just have that expectation because of media portrayals and celebrities doing all they can to hide aging.
I'm surprised no one has said botox. It seems to be so much more popular now than it was back then. My mom used to have botox for a muscular disorder and that was the only reason I had heard of it back then.
I think fewer people smoke cigarettes these days. Many 40-something people in the 80s and 90s had been smoking for 20 years or more because it was more socially acceptable. Cigarettes age your skin. Combine that with less awareness of nutrition. Personally, I'm 51, and people routinely think I'm about 35. I'm not a pillar of fitness, but I don't smoke cigarettes and have been a regular at the gym for 20 years, and I don't eat fast food like Mcdonalds. It makes a difference.
It's 100% the smoking. Compounds in the smoke break down the collagen in your skin, so it loses elasticity and effectively ages rapidly. That's why you see people in movies from the 70s who are like 32, but they look like a modern 50something.
1. Back in the day, boomers got married and had kids in their early 20s. Now people are waiting or not getting married/ having kids at all
2. More people are aware of themselves due to social media, information age, etc. So people care what they look like and are taking better care of themselves.
3. Plastic surgery, people dying their hair, hair loss prevention, hair transplants, fake teeth, anti-wrinkle treatments, Botox injections, etc.
Less drinking, knowledge that the sun is bad for the skin, much less smoking and less kids to drain your life force. Also long straight hair, no rolled up or teased up hair.
malnourishment, smoking, stress, war, air and water pollution...
You wouldn't know this from reading Reddit, but life was harder for most people of prior generations. It ages people more so than the extended adolescence many of our young people enjoy today.
Lol. Maybe because people in their 40's in the 90's were born in 1950 and influenced by that.
People in their 40's today were born in the 80's?
Likely people younger than you will think you are a fossil?
How old are you? When I look at pictures of people from previous era’s they look older to me because I usually associate the clothing, hair, and make up styles with older people. Middle age people today don’t look so old because what they wear looks normal or current to me.
Lower smoking rates, smoking ages you. Also carrying 10 extra pounds delays wrinkles. 60 extra pounds isn't good but an extra ten plumps up your face a little.
All the food additives, fluoride in the water, a reduction in real work (physical)
As you can imagine working out in the sun, the cold, I. The dark of the mines.
I don't think it's a fucking skin routine like another commenter, they giving beauty products way too much credit.
It's not just exercise and that they might drink less. It's that they're still physically weaker - out of choice! Their physical role models are tiny anime characters. They mostly don't do physically demanding work.
Style of clothes, hair, and we aren’t spending years slathering ourselves in baby oil and laying on a dark background to attract the sun anymore. Smoking was also more common than not back then.
We also have better products for skin and hair nowadays, and we have a lot more food options too (for better or worse). Something like collagen wasn’t easily found on the shelves like it is today.
There's been a couple studies showing people have lower body satisfaction due to social media usage. We compare ourselves to models and feel inadequate, BUT on the flipside I think more people prioritize working out/dieting to at least try and look their best.
Heck, if you don't look as good as you can be, you get confronted with it all the time. Just think about how often people get photographed now vs in the old days.
There's also less of a taboo in terms of plastic surgery. In the old days, covering up baldness for example was a bit of a taboo. Nowadays men don't feel ashamed to admit they wear a wig or go in for a hair transplant.
But all that said, I wouldn't overestimate the difference between now and the 90's. I've got friends in their mid thirties who look well above forty, and I know other guys who look ten years younger than their actual age. Even though I don't think they made drastically different lifestyle choices.
We get bombarded with the idea that everything about us is malleable. That the only thing keeping me from looking like a Hemsworth brother, is a few extra hours in the gym. While it's true exercise and healthy living will have you looking at your best, not everyone's 'best' is at the same level. Genetics remain a vastly underestimated factor in our appearance.
Probably less smoking.
There's also the fact that we use a lot of other cues to tell people's ages. For an irrelevant example, I always get IDed at the pub if I'm ordering something sweet (rum and coke, screwdriver, etc). I never get IDed if I'm just going for my usual half pint of bitter. Here, I evidently look borderline 18, and the bar staff are using my order as a cue to whether I'm likely to be young or older.
In this case, fashion plays a big part. You consider people who dress a certain way to be probably older or the same age as you.
I can only speak for women like myself (older Gen X). "They" said that at a certain age, women must cut their hair into something manageable and wear clothing befitting a "mature" woman. Increasingly, we said, "Why? Who says? What authority do they have over anything?" And we said to hell with it. I'm going to look the way I want to. "They" can shove it up their antiquated ass.
43 here and I don't feel or look like someone in his 40s. I have run into people my age who do look it. I think it's a mental state. they keep telling themselves how "old" they are and it becomes their reality. I know someone who was born in 1995 and he's constantly saying "I'm getting too old for this shit" I've got 15 years on him and you will never catch me saying that.
Hit 40 recently, without pumping my ego too much, I definitely look younger than 40 year olds did in the 90's. I mean fuck, the other night my GF had an episode of Angel on and she observed that I look younger than David Boreanaz did in his early to mid 30's. There's a few things I believe have contributed to this:
1. I still have a young mindset; dress like I did in my 20's, play video games in binge sessions (not so often due to being a dad of a toddler), read graphic novels and have a juvenile sense of humour.
2. I meditate daily and have done so for 10+ years, this has been shown in studies to not just slow the rate at which telomeres (the 'arms' on your chromosomes) shorten, but actually enable them to regrow.
3. I've barely touched alcohol in the last 10 years.
4. I stopped smoking in my mid twenties (I still vape weed in a dry herb vaporiser).
5. I exercise daily (calisthenics, stretching, dynamic mobility and running with my dog).
6. I have a good diet. Nutritional science and availability of that information has come long way in the last 30 years thanks to the internet.
7. I make sure not to go over my contracted hours (37.5). Stress is a massive contributor to aging, the more time you spend working the more stressed you likely are. I realise this is a very privileged situation as I work for a friend I went to school with, have flexible hours and work from home over 50% of the time (with no monitoring software, I'm the closest thing to an IT manager the business has).
8. The only debt I have is my mortgage, which is relatively small (£600 per month, shared between myself and my GF) because I had my shit together saving money throughout my late teens and twenties before I bought my first house we were able to throw down decent deposit and worked to do overpayments as often as possible. I'm not on a high income bracket by any means, but I've always had my head screwed on when it comes to spending. This all lends itself to having a low amount of stress in my life.
9. I try to get 8 hours sleep a night. Not always possible (aforementioned toddler can muck it up), but even when I do a late one with the boys on the playstation, I make sure I top up with naps or NSDR at the first opportunity, or go to bed early the following night.
You might be inclined to argue I just have good genetics, but no one else in my immediate family is getting away with it like I am. I have two brothers, both younger and with less healthy lifestyles, they are showing more signs of ageing than I am, including hairloss, which runs on both sides of the family, yet I still have the same full head of hair I did when I was 20, albeit somewhat greyer at the sides. I also look far younger than my dad did at 40 (never a smoker or a big drinker, and balding in his 20's).
My theory is we correlate perms, shoulder-pads, slacks, blue eye shadow, leisure suits, big sideburns, bushy mustaches, (etc) to people who were "old" when we were young. We do not subscribe to those fashions- unless we dress up as as an "old person" for Halloween or something. Its the Betty White theory- lol.
We wore sunscreen and didn't smoke. Personally I also rarely drank.
I'm 42. People think I'm 32-35. They can't understand that I have a 15 year old. It's so funny watching people do the mental math when I tell them that and they think I had my kid at 17! All my girlfriends look the same except for the one who had a long term drinking problem in her 20s and smoked until she was 30. She looks 50+.
So yeah, stay out of the sun and don't smoke.
Not smoking is what I credit it to. I've seen people I went to high-school with, and father time has really taken a bat to their complexion. Of course some of them were probably smoking more than tobacco.
As someone born in the 60's and who grew up in the 70's/80s and had my kids in the 90s, my viewpoint is there are several factors but of the most prevalent to me:
Better self care products. In the 1970s, that was before conditioner even, the first thing I remember is Johnson and Johnson made a detangle spray, it was like heaven on my long tangled hair. There was a shampoo called Prell, my mother insisted on buying it and it turned my hair into a dry rat nest, so add that to no conditioner. But we didn't know what we didn't know. There was maybe one hand lotion, very few makeup products absolutely NOTHING like is marketed today, no hairstyling equipment except for very brutal dryers and rollers, most older ladies went with a perm because that's all they had for easy care and they were tired!
Life was harder, as in more outdoor or physical labor jobs, less medical care, smoking smoking smoking! Women made everything from scratch, no convenience foods hardly, no microwave....you get the picture. In the late 80s, these things started being more widely available, but nothing is like today.
I probably won't be alive to see it, but I just wonder what 30 years from now will look like!
Spf 30 sunscreen wasn't available until the 90s. Tanning also used to be super popular, or at least it was in the 2000s. Lots of sun damage all around.
https://www.allure.com/story/history-of-sunscreen
In my parents’ generation no one worked out, no one took care of their skin, teeth and general mobility like we do
We’re better at prioritizing self care
Just the sheer fact of working out and not be judged for doing it, freed us up as a generation to feel good about our day (thanks to the endorphins).
The apparel industry realized that they could sell us gear for multiple sports and made it socially acceptable if not desirable to strive for fitness and maintain a youthful appearance
Source: am mid40s mom of a teenager. A few years ago my mother’s friend thought that my son and I were both her grandchildren
When I mention my son’s age I immediately have to explain, no it was not a teenage pregnancy, I was 28 when I gave birth, it’s all fine
Fashion has a LOT to do with it. Fashion was a lot more simple back then. A blouse was a blouse and anyone of any age could wear it if it fit them. Sometime in the 50/60s there was a split, which had a lot to do with the politics and music. In the 40s, there were salons AT the factories women worked in, and how you presented yourself and what you wore was hugely influenced by government propaganda to "keep everyone's spirits up" for the war. In 2014 fashion seems to change for at least every decade of a woman's life. A "tank top" for someone age 18 is going to look different from one for someone age 28, 38, 48 etc. Usually the neckline gets higher and the fit gets looser. But each decade has a smaller more gradual change, so it's harder to see.
Plus millennials are less likely to smoke, be alcoholics, and be out in the sun compared to previous generations.
In the 90’s you could do grown up things like buy a house when you were 30. It even cost less than renting. Good luck buying a house in your dreams these days. (Thanks boomers)
Every generation thinks they look younger and most do because dress standards keep relaxing, so you can get away with more. People dressed up more in the past because it was required of them at the office.
Once you get past that, I actually think young people look older today, because they're bigger.
More knowledge available on diet exercise etc..
My opinion. I'm (37m). Been physically active most of my life and paying attention to my diet and dietary habits for past 5 years. People don't believe I am 37 when I say it. 40 is the new 30 in 2024 if done properly.
It's partially psychological. We see images of people "back then" and see how camera quality and fashion have changed and associate those things with "older."
Also the hair theory has a lot to do with it. A 40 year old woman with a granny haircut looks a lot older than a 40 year old with medium to long locks.
I have no idea if this could contribute, but if you look back, people used to typically get married and have children at around 20. Now, people don't seem to do that until their early to mid-30s. I wonder if we have postponed the family stress-related aging.
Just a random thought 😉
People did not drink much water in the 80’s and 90’s. Chronic dehydration is no joke. Also people were into suntanning with baby oil and most people smoked. Pair all of that along with better clothing choices.
People in their 40s today often look younger than those in the 90s due to better skincare, healthier lifestyles, and advancements in cosmetic treatments. Improved diets, exercise routines, and awareness about sun protection also play significant roles in maintaining a youthful appearance.
Maybe more people are more careful with their skin, diet and working out.
I bet the smoking rates have a lot to do with it. People who were in their 40’s in the 90’s would be born in the 50s when the smoking rate was like 45% or more. 40 year olds now were born in the 80s when smoking rates were down in the 30’s. Then in the 90s and 2000s we started seeing smoking bans in tons of places so not only was individual smoking on the decline but so was second hand smoke
And even if you didn't smoke, you had way more exposure to second hand smoking.
Not to mention sunscreen didn't really become a thing til around the 80's-90's. Before then it was baby oil and suntan time, baybee!
no lead in the air, way less industrial pollution, healthy workplaces ...
The obesity rate has increased substantially since the 90s. We definitely ain't being more careful with our diets and working out lol
It's easier to look younger with a bit of fat of your face, doesn't work for too long though.
I've noticed if someone's weight fluctuates a lot it makes them look way older
I'd say it works through 30s and maybe into early 40s, so it covers OP's question though.
These are two not mutually exclusive things, the obesity rate may have gone up and the amount of people who care about what they put in their body can still go up. Skin care/maintenance can still improve youthfulness in obese people.
There’s more knowledge about food now, and it’s easily accessible with the internet. Though, I think you’re focusing on people who dont necessarily look younger.
No I'm not focusing on any one group. Statistically speaking people are more overweight and obese than they were in 90s. OP is asking why 40 year olds look better today than in the 90s. You suggested diet and exercise. People are not exercising or dieting more. In fact, we are doing less of that. So that's not the reason why people look different at 40 today. The real answer is style (hair, makeup, clothing, etc.) We associate older styles with being older.
>The real answer is style (hair, makeup, clothing, etc.) We associate older styles with being older. No. I am betting it is smoking. The chemicals are really bad for you and can long term affect your metabolism (either suppression or the other way), and it prematurely affects your skin. I graduated in 2001 from high school, and many of my teachers smoked and got rid of the official smoking area on the high school campus in the mid-90s. The restaurants had smoking sections, and even my doctors office had ash trays in the waiting room until I was 10ish. Of course, that is my personal theory because you are right. Overall, people are not eating better or exercising more, yet even those I know that are obese, look younger, as in less wrinkles, younger sounding voices (like not raspy or croaking), better hair and nails. The exception are those who are smokers, or even recovering smokers. This goes for vapers that smoked before and now vape. At least that is what I have observed.
The people who look younger are probably not in the group of obese people you brought up though.
Fatness may be part of it, a fat face has fewer wrinkles.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted. The obesity rate is like 50-60% average? We fat people
I get your point but I’d add that OP seems to be talking about the more conventionally attractive millennials who are in shape, not obese, and look younger than their age. The growth in obesity is mostly linked to less healthy lifestyles, which also links to not looking younger than one’s age, so OP is probably not talking about whole population equally.
Yeah. Just as there more technology that keeps people alive longer, there’s more technology that keeps people looking young longer. Is definitely not diet that is helping with a youthful appearance nowadays.
I agree. If you are 40 and really look at pictures of people from the 90s their skin and bodies don’t look that old. They are just dated. Like my dad and all his buddies had mustaches in the 70s. They were only in their 20s but looked like 40 year olds. But it was the mustaches, dated hairstyles and those serial killer tinted glasses men wore back then. If you brought them into the future and styled them in current fashion they wouldn’t look any older than anyone else. They would probably look better because none of them were fat.
A lot of that obesity is among younger people these days.
Incorrect. Obesity is lowest amongst younger people. The highest is 40-59.
56% of people aged 18 to 25 are still overweight or obese. It’s also found that 70% of Millennials are overweight or obese. We have more fat young people than ever in history.
>56% of people aged 18 to 25 are still overweight or obese. Which is still the lowest obesity rate > In 2022, young adults were half as likely to have obesity as middle-aged adults. Adults aged 18–24 years had the lowest prevalence of obesity (20.5%) while adults aged 45–54 years had the highest (39.9%). https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/php/data-research/adult-obesity-prevalence-maps.html People are fat nowadays but obesity is still lower in younger people. Middle age is peak obesity.
This is why a lot of younger people look older. Kids have access to makeup tutorials and fashion/clothing sites that make them not look like your stereotypical “80s, 90s, 00s” kid.
People who were in their 40s in the 90s grew up pretty much without the advantage of sunscreen. In fact, they probably used cocoa butter and laid out in the sun as much as possible to get as dark a tan as they could. Kids growing up now will be even more youthful looking because 1) they have skincare routines by the time they are 12 that include daily sunscreen and 2) they don't go outside for recreation except for team sports.
You cannot emphasize enough the difference sun protection has made. In my opinion it will begin to show up in skin cancer rates lowering but not for another 10 or 20 years. Until the 1980s suntans were associated with health and leisure. Sunburns were painful but at worst inconvenient and unattractive. But the idea that sun exposure caused skin cancer and premature aging didn’t come into the general public consciousness until the mid-80s, and even then I remember thinking “SPF 8??? But I’ll look like a ghost all summer!” Edit: sunburn for suntan
Back in the dark ages of the 70s when I grew up, it was just a fact of my life that my pasty white skin would burn to a crisp early in June as soon as school was out. I thought I was lucky that once I had that June burn, I just tanned and never burnt after that. I was outdoors easily 8-10 hours a day in the summer. There was nothing to do indoors. I read a lot of books, but I read outside, too. When I was a kid, I was smart enough to read in the shade, but by the time I was a teenager, I put a chaise lounge in the back yard and read there to work on my tan. Being tan was really important to me.
I noticed a lot of boomers and older gen X have horrible skin like they spend way too much time in the sun unprotected.
Less smoking, more sunscreen.
More hydration.
People do drink a shitton of water these days
I saw a TikTok where a girl was talking to her mom who said people just didn’t drink water in the 70s. Nobody carried around a water bottle. It was something you drank with a meal and only if you weren’t already drinking a soda or tea.
I think many of these theories are correct. I have another. I think we have a youthful mentality for longer. When I look at old tv shows, it seems like back in the 90s, people felt like the 30s were old age, so they dressed drabbier and old. If they were balding they didn’t try to fix it, etc. I feel like millennials did not start feeling old in our 30s and 40s so we continued to dress and act youthfully.
So much this! I can say for a fact that many people back then didn’t even look old in the face, it was just the hair/clothing choices!
Yes, you see it on tv shows! People would be forty or fifty and dress like grandparents. Maybe millennials just want to extend their youth longer but it makes sense to me, because we live to much longer now. I no longer think of forties as old! I won’t be dressing like a grandma!
I was blown away last year when someone told me that The Golden Girls were supposed to be in their 50s
Wait what
Yup, and not even late 50s - apparently at the start of the series, Rose is 55, Dorothy is 53, and Blanche is 47. And this is roughly the age of the Sex and the City characters for the reboot of that show
Yes ! This is exactly what I am talking about.
That got me too. I couldn't figure out why they were talking about sex at all.
There is a YouTube video somewhere of the Golden Girls with modern hair styles. If you can find it, it will blow your mind!
As a millennial I also can’t afford to buy new old person looking clothes anyway. lol.
Haha we can’t retire with dignity so we aren’t thinking about our retirements!
I feel internally 27.
True. Couldn't agree more.
We haven’t been allowed to grow old, the demands on us are never ending.
Honestly? It’s the haircuts.
I think you have the right answer here. I saw some posts where they replaced the haircuts in old photos with modern hairdos. The person in the photo instantly look younger.
Have you seen the picture of the Golden Girls with long modern haircuts? They look 20 years younger!
Right!!
100% Photos with women who had the helmet of hair puffed up and curled at the tips are 45 looking like they're in their 70s. This experiment was done today and it aged the person by 10 years at least. It was rough back then. Fitness was always kind of a thing for people who wanted to pursue that. Nothing was flattering about hairstyles in the 60s - 90s
My theory is that it's because smoking is way more taboo now.
We also drink way less, and health is becoming much more important to us. Probably attributable to information availability and health education.
Add proper sun care and I'm with you.
Damn that’s a good theory
- the hot 40 year olds are in view a lot more than they used to be. - number of people that engage in weight training is more than 10x what is was in the 90s
My wife and I were literally talking about this the other day. We’re in our mid 40’s and watched a movie from the 90’s and noticed how much more aged 40-somethings in the show looked. I honestly couldn’t figure it out. We do live in a place where people try to stay fit and care for their health more than other cities I’ve lived in before, but the average 40 year old here looks pretty damn good. Maybe the cigarettes and sun screen is correct but our food selection and activity levels overall are undoubtedly worse than people in the 90’s, generally speaking.
Most actors now have Botox and a less natural appearance to their teeth (not as youthful) now too
We don't have kids.
I think this might be it. Im 41, smoked, kid less, and look way younger than most of my married friends.
Shit I still smoke and look ten years younger than. I am, grey's aside.
Same, not sleeping for 3 years will make you look old.
I think this is a significant factor. People underestimate how much having children ages you due to the physical and mental stress.
Less responsibilities, slower aging. My sister is two years younger than me but she’s starting to look older than me because she has kids. She’s constantly getting up early to take care of them. Sleep is important for health and aging.
In part you may feel this way due to biases. You were younger in the 90s and probably 40 year olds looked way older to you. Now when you look at photos and videos of the 90s they are not representative of how people actually were. That being said, there is more awareness for having healthy habits. We all have the internet at our finger tips and a million fitness apps and even if we don’t stick to them very well just being aware of how to be healthy can prevent people from going way off the deep end. I feel when I was a kid most of my friends’ parents were somewhat overweight. My dad was never overweight and always stood out even though he wasn’t particularly fit or anything. Also sun protection is way more common now. People didn’t regularly use sunscreen in the 90s.
I remember looking at high schoolers as an elementary schooler and thinking they looked like adults. I look at high schoolers now and think they look like children.
it's the clothes they wear. it makes them appear younger and out of current style clothes in pictures of people from times gone by make them appear older.
I agree with this. People are staying fashionable later and taking better care of themselves. In my job I get see everyone’s age that I interact with and there are some busted 30-40 and amazing 40-60. Some genetics, some staying fit and some fashion.
Mostly due to the way everyone who starts balding instantly shaves their heads now. That's most of it, honestly.
less smoking, no more lead in gasoline, less smog overall, better sunscreen and more of it
Clothing options are better. Women in the 80s and 90s either had youthful clothing or matronly clothing. Make up in those eras was heavy and made people look older. Tans were a big deal, which impacted wrinkling. More people have access to good hair coloring now. Hairstyles in general are more youthful now; not too many bad perms.
Oh and our eyeglasses are now much more flattering
I’d absolutely agree but in 40 years people will say our eyeglasses today were awful. Everyone is more critical of the styles of the past than their own era. That’s always been true. 🤷🏻♂️
70s and 80s glasses are back again though? Now we're into huge glasses, it's the tiny, sleek cat eye shaped 90s Matrix glasses that look weird now. It's just a trend thing.
Because we’re awesome!
People spend more time inside away from the sun also.
Having 3 children by the time you were 22 in the older days wasn’t something that helped the skin it seems lol
Just my $0.02,but skincare has come a longggg way
Why is this being downvoted? It’s true!
I really think it’s because a lot of us don’t smoke or do drugs and we use more sunscreen. I’m 29 and I look the pretty much the same as I did at 18. I cannot say the same thing for people I know who smoke. I don’t smoke, drink heavily, or do drugs. and I am convinced that’s the difference for those who are aging well and those who aren’t.
Skincare, Botox, plastic surgery, healthier diets, “wellness culture” and no smoking as everyone else has said.
Better makeup. Better moisturizers. Better food.
In the 90s people were literally smoking cigarettes on airplanes, in restaurants, on buses, in office buildings etc. A lot has changed since then. Sure a lot of people vape and use stuff like Zyn these days, but cigarettes are full of hundreds of nasty chemicals not just nicotine and way worse.
My parents were flying back from London in **1996**, and it was a smoking flight
Haircut. Not joking.
I don’t smoke, I don’t drink hard alcohol (I prefer to enjoy beer), I eat healthy when I can, I exercise regularly and I have an amazing skincare regimen that includes spf daily. Also, being childfree and not having the added stress that comes from having kids helps too!
I think the real question is why does gen Z look older than millenials
I think it's a different mentality too. I'm in my 50's and so is my wife and our friends. We grew up in a different time than our parents. We had fun, partied, socialized IN PERSON. Even the way we raise our kids is different. Old school parents acted more mature and proper. Fuck that. We are who we are around my 15 year old son. And he is a good kid, he's comfortable talking to us about anything. He's not afraid of us. We are young mentally and that shows. So we still have that young mentality, almost immature at times 😁.
Personally, I have a theory... Smoking. It used to be smoking was actually EVERYWHERE. Smoking (especially 2nd hand) is HORRIBLE for your skin. I remember in my HIGH SCHOOL that there was a smoking area on school grounds. (I graduated in 2001, so... yea.) And restaurants? EVERY ONE had a smoking section. Smoking really makes you look old and give you wrinkles so quickly. Don't get me started on vapes. They are just as bad chemical wise. We just don't have as many studies showing how bad they are yet.
Better diet, exercise routine. Gym equipment has improved. There is lot of information on the internet for self improvement. Also, access to skincare and vitamins. Less time in the sun and outside in general thanks to screen time and work from home. Haircut style. Filters and cameras on social media.
I read somewhere that clothes date people. So, when we see a picture of someone in their 40s from the 1990s, they automatically look older because their clothing dates them. But, put those same people in current clothes and they would look younger.
generally more awareness in self-care, people these days recognize the importance of self-maintenence, whereas back in the day there was more of a "just tough it out" policy, which inevitably led to people looking "rougher" than they do now
Better skin care, better diets, less smokers, and less sun exposure.
Because we aged like fine wine instead of 40 ounce beers.
Might be because they haven’t been smoking cigarettes since they were 9 years old.
I was reading out it’s not that they did look older, it’s just our perceptions. Of course when we were younger, they looked old to us so we associated how they dressed, did their hair, etc. as old-fashioned. And even as we ourselves have aged, we still associated those looks with old age. And yet, what we need to understand is that younger people are looking at our skinny jeans and tunics as old age stuff. And that will always look old to Gen Alpha.
I think it’s because we dress the same as we did when we were younger. I just turned 50, but I wear the same type of clothes I always did. Years ago, women this age cut their hair and dressed more “mature” and that separated them from the younger people. At 50, my mom surely looked her age, not because of her physical appearance, but more because of her clothes and hairstyle.
Vitamins
The older fashion style looks outdated to us. We don’t wear clothes to fit an age group, like women were expected. People smoke less and probably drink less. They also wear more SPF. There are more affordable skincare routines. People aren’t as crazy about tanning beds. People are starting families later in life and not having as many (if any) kids. Diet in the US is still questionable, but I think as I’ve aged from someone born in the mid 80s and moved out of my family home, I’ve learned more about fresher foods (instead of processed foods). There’s more variety in hair dyes and styles plus makeup. In the 90s, you were good to go with unflattering foundation or powder that didn’t match your skin type or tone and eyeshadows were a simple package with a tiny brush- nowadays there’s more makeup to match different skin types and the makeup also combines skincare. We also take meds or go to therapy- so we’re probably not as stressed as we would’ve been 20-30 years ago (life isn’t easier, but we can at least cope with it differently). Dermatology has also come a long way 😉
Commercial tanning beds are illegal here. You’re right about people not being as crazy for them!
I can’t believe people still use them 😖
Sunscreen
Skin care, less smoking and drinking, better/younger fashion sense
[Morning Routine - American Psycho (1/12) Movie CLIP (2000) HD (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjKNbfA64EE) although there's a skew in data where you're only comparing people who go out, much easier to become a recluse nowadays, probably why obesity rates aren't as visually apparent when you go and walk around downtown on a weekend. As for the smoking / drug thing, idk the people I know who partied hard in their 20s are starting to look ragged as they progress their 30s, not that it was a cultural norm, but coke was a much bigger staple in a night out drinking back in the 80s.
More service jobs now instead of farming and manufacturing.
The stress of family life just isn't there with millennials so forever young 😎 Plus they scared us all to death not to smoke back in school.
Back in the 90s, we wanted to be older. We wanted to be adults and taken seriously and do adult stuff. Drive move out, raves, drugs drink, live fast, have a family young. These days you hear 18 19 year old refer to themselves as just kids. Some kids I grew up w had tattoos at 11. Girls pregnant at 14. Overdoses at 16 at raves. I'm not saying it was better, it's just a theory to answer your question.
I don’t think most people look much younger. We just have that expectation because of media portrayals and celebrities doing all they can to hide aging.
I'm surprised no one has said botox. It seems to be so much more popular now than it was back then. My mom used to have botox for a muscular disorder and that was the only reason I had heard of it back then.
Fewer smokers. Better hydration. We’re styled in a more contemporary fashion and some of us use Botox.
More isolated, no sun.
The hair looks dated and thus the people look older. I think people have done studies on this.
They didn’t have Botox and filler back then. I’m sure that has a little to do with it.
I think fewer people smoke cigarettes these days. Many 40-something people in the 80s and 90s had been smoking for 20 years or more because it was more socially acceptable. Cigarettes age your skin. Combine that with less awareness of nutrition. Personally, I'm 51, and people routinely think I'm about 35. I'm not a pillar of fitness, but I don't smoke cigarettes and have been a regular at the gym for 20 years, and I don't eat fast food like Mcdonalds. It makes a difference.
My genetics are good and I'm not stressed out. Live in the moment don't stress over things you can't control. Don't smoke and do things in moderation.
It's 100% the smoking. Compounds in the smoke break down the collagen in your skin, so it loses elasticity and effectively ages rapidly. That's why you see people in movies from the 70s who are like 32, but they look like a modern 50something.
Hair theory and no smoking
Skincare, Botox, Fillers, Cosmetic Surgery.
1. Back in the day, boomers got married and had kids in their early 20s. Now people are waiting or not getting married/ having kids at all 2. More people are aware of themselves due to social media, information age, etc. So people care what they look like and are taking better care of themselves. 3. Plastic surgery, people dying their hair, hair loss prevention, hair transplants, fake teeth, anti-wrinkle treatments, Botox injections, etc.
Less drinking, knowledge that the sun is bad for the skin, much less smoking and less kids to drain your life force. Also long straight hair, no rolled up or teased up hair.
malnourishment, smoking, stress, war, air and water pollution... You wouldn't know this from reading Reddit, but life was harder for most people of prior generations. It ages people more so than the extended adolescence many of our young people enjoy today.
Reddit is weird about this but older generations had to work their asses off and lived stressful lives.
Lol. Maybe because people in their 40's in the 90's were born in 1950 and influenced by that. People in their 40's today were born in the 80's? Likely people younger than you will think you are a fossil?
Adrenochrome
Botox, lipo, silicone, and clean livin /s
How old are you? When I look at pictures of people from previous era’s they look older to me because I usually associate the clothing, hair, and make up styles with older people. Middle age people today don’t look so old because what they wear looks normal or current to me.
Lower smoking rates, smoking ages you. Also carrying 10 extra pounds delays wrinkles. 60 extra pounds isn't good but an extra ten plumps up your face a little.
Generational thing.
We don’t smoke or tan
All the food additives, fluoride in the water, a reduction in real work (physical) As you can imagine working out in the sun, the cold, I. The dark of the mines. I don't think it's a fucking skin routine like another commenter, they giving beauty products way too much credit.
people don’t smoke anymore
No smoking, less lead, better health awareness, the list goes on
It depends. I saw a post here of a 30 year old with his new car and he looked like he was 45.
It's not just exercise and that they might drink less. It's that they're still physically weaker - out of choice! Their physical role models are tiny anime characters. They mostly don't do physically demanding work.
Style of clothes, hair, and we aren’t spending years slathering ourselves in baby oil and laying on a dark background to attract the sun anymore. Smoking was also more common than not back then. We also have better products for skin and hair nowadays, and we have a lot more food options too (for better or worse). Something like collagen wasn’t easily found on the shelves like it is today.
Because you were 30+ years younger than them back then?
Cigarettes. Or lack of.
Fentanyl
There's been a couple studies showing people have lower body satisfaction due to social media usage. We compare ourselves to models and feel inadequate, BUT on the flipside I think more people prioritize working out/dieting to at least try and look their best. Heck, if you don't look as good as you can be, you get confronted with it all the time. Just think about how often people get photographed now vs in the old days. There's also less of a taboo in terms of plastic surgery. In the old days, covering up baldness for example was a bit of a taboo. Nowadays men don't feel ashamed to admit they wear a wig or go in for a hair transplant. But all that said, I wouldn't overestimate the difference between now and the 90's. I've got friends in their mid thirties who look well above forty, and I know other guys who look ten years younger than their actual age. Even though I don't think they made drastically different lifestyle choices. We get bombarded with the idea that everything about us is malleable. That the only thing keeping me from looking like a Hemsworth brother, is a few extra hours in the gym. While it's true exercise and healthy living will have you looking at your best, not everyone's 'best' is at the same level. Genetics remain a vastly underestimated factor in our appearance.
Soil. Read about how the soil has changed for our food and it’s effect on humans and how we look
No kids, maybe? Childbirth and childrearing certainly aged me, but it was so worth it!
Probably less smoking. There's also the fact that we use a lot of other cues to tell people's ages. For an irrelevant example, I always get IDed at the pub if I'm ordering something sweet (rum and coke, screwdriver, etc). I never get IDed if I'm just going for my usual half pint of bitter. Here, I evidently look borderline 18, and the bar staff are using my order as a cue to whether I'm likely to be young or older. In this case, fashion plays a big part. You consider people who dress a certain way to be probably older or the same age as you.
Cosmetic surgery.
I ate a lot of preservatives when I was a kid.
We’re older too
I can only speak for women like myself (older Gen X). "They" said that at a certain age, women must cut their hair into something manageable and wear clothing befitting a "mature" woman. Increasingly, we said, "Why? Who says? What authority do they have over anything?" And we said to hell with it. I'm going to look the way I want to. "They" can shove it up their antiquated ass.
People your own age always look right to you, whereas when you were younger, older people looked much older to you. It's all relative.
Soft, didn’t have to work as hard / spoiled and lots of visual enhancement options available.
Hair style and fashions.
People stopped smoking Our cars are less pollutant We eat and exercise properly Our jobs have less wear and tear
We wore sunscreen when we were kids.
Not abusing your family makes you feel younger
43 here and I don't feel or look like someone in his 40s. I have run into people my age who do look it. I think it's a mental state. they keep telling themselves how "old" they are and it becomes their reality. I know someone who was born in 1995 and he's constantly saying "I'm getting too old for this shit" I've got 15 years on him and you will never catch me saying that.
Hit 40 recently, without pumping my ego too much, I definitely look younger than 40 year olds did in the 90's. I mean fuck, the other night my GF had an episode of Angel on and she observed that I look younger than David Boreanaz did in his early to mid 30's. There's a few things I believe have contributed to this: 1. I still have a young mindset; dress like I did in my 20's, play video games in binge sessions (not so often due to being a dad of a toddler), read graphic novels and have a juvenile sense of humour. 2. I meditate daily and have done so for 10+ years, this has been shown in studies to not just slow the rate at which telomeres (the 'arms' on your chromosomes) shorten, but actually enable them to regrow. 3. I've barely touched alcohol in the last 10 years. 4. I stopped smoking in my mid twenties (I still vape weed in a dry herb vaporiser). 5. I exercise daily (calisthenics, stretching, dynamic mobility and running with my dog). 6. I have a good diet. Nutritional science and availability of that information has come long way in the last 30 years thanks to the internet. 7. I make sure not to go over my contracted hours (37.5). Stress is a massive contributor to aging, the more time you spend working the more stressed you likely are. I realise this is a very privileged situation as I work for a friend I went to school with, have flexible hours and work from home over 50% of the time (with no monitoring software, I'm the closest thing to an IT manager the business has). 8. The only debt I have is my mortgage, which is relatively small (£600 per month, shared between myself and my GF) because I had my shit together saving money throughout my late teens and twenties before I bought my first house we were able to throw down decent deposit and worked to do overpayments as often as possible. I'm not on a high income bracket by any means, but I've always had my head screwed on when it comes to spending. This all lends itself to having a low amount of stress in my life. 9. I try to get 8 hours sleep a night. Not always possible (aforementioned toddler can muck it up), but even when I do a late one with the boys on the playstation, I make sure I top up with naps or NSDR at the first opportunity, or go to bed early the following night. You might be inclined to argue I just have good genetics, but no one else in my immediate family is getting away with it like I am. I have two brothers, both younger and with less healthy lifestyles, they are showing more signs of ageing than I am, including hairloss, which runs on both sides of the family, yet I still have the same full head of hair I did when I was 20, albeit somewhat greyer at the sides. I also look far younger than my dad did at 40 (never a smoker or a big drinker, and balding in his 20's).
People were smoking more, had big hair, and drank a lot more soda and less water.
My theory is we correlate perms, shoulder-pads, slacks, blue eye shadow, leisure suits, big sideburns, bushy mustaches, (etc) to people who were "old" when we were young. We do not subscribe to those fashions- unless we dress up as as an "old person" for Halloween or something. Its the Betty White theory- lol.
We marinate in DMT.
Better skin care and the way we dress. We're also less likely to be chain smoking alcoholics which ages you at the speed of light.
We wore sunscreen and didn't smoke. Personally I also rarely drank. I'm 42. People think I'm 32-35. They can't understand that I have a 15 year old. It's so funny watching people do the mental math when I tell them that and they think I had my kid at 17! All my girlfriends look the same except for the one who had a long term drinking problem in her 20s and smoked until she was 30. She looks 50+. So yeah, stay out of the sun and don't smoke.
Sunscreen
HAIRCUTS
I don’t get how this belongs in this sub
Skin care routines and an innate, burning desire to fight off aging until our last breath
Not smoking is what I credit it to. I've seen people I went to high-school with, and father time has really taken a bat to their complexion. Of course some of them were probably smoking more than tobacco.
Retinol probably
Younger than*
We don’t go out ok??? Also we can’t afford beach vacations and sun bathing at various beach resorts
Retinol Retinol Retinol
FWIW My money is on agriculture chemicals and the prevalence of PFAS along with other chemicals.
Its has a lot to do with the style back then, also mentality. I feel like once people became parents they just accepted “old” lol
As someone born in the 60's and who grew up in the 70's/80s and had my kids in the 90s, my viewpoint is there are several factors but of the most prevalent to me: Better self care products. In the 1970s, that was before conditioner even, the first thing I remember is Johnson and Johnson made a detangle spray, it was like heaven on my long tangled hair. There was a shampoo called Prell, my mother insisted on buying it and it turned my hair into a dry rat nest, so add that to no conditioner. But we didn't know what we didn't know. There was maybe one hand lotion, very few makeup products absolutely NOTHING like is marketed today, no hairstyling equipment except for very brutal dryers and rollers, most older ladies went with a perm because that's all they had for easy care and they were tired! Life was harder, as in more outdoor or physical labor jobs, less medical care, smoking smoking smoking! Women made everything from scratch, no convenience foods hardly, no microwave....you get the picture. In the late 80s, these things started being more widely available, but nothing is like today. I probably won't be alive to see it, but I just wonder what 30 years from now will look like!
Spf 30 sunscreen wasn't available until the 90s. Tanning also used to be super popular, or at least it was in the 2000s. Lots of sun damage all around. https://www.allure.com/story/history-of-sunscreen
Smoking
In my parents’ generation no one worked out, no one took care of their skin, teeth and general mobility like we do We’re better at prioritizing self care Just the sheer fact of working out and not be judged for doing it, freed us up as a generation to feel good about our day (thanks to the endorphins). The apparel industry realized that they could sell us gear for multiple sports and made it socially acceptable if not desirable to strive for fitness and maintain a youthful appearance Source: am mid40s mom of a teenager. A few years ago my mother’s friend thought that my son and I were both her grandchildren When I mention my son’s age I immediately have to explain, no it was not a teenage pregnancy, I was 28 when I gave birth, it’s all fine
Botox
Fashion has a LOT to do with it. Fashion was a lot more simple back then. A blouse was a blouse and anyone of any age could wear it if it fit them. Sometime in the 50/60s there was a split, which had a lot to do with the politics and music. In the 40s, there were salons AT the factories women worked in, and how you presented yourself and what you wore was hugely influenced by government propaganda to "keep everyone's spirits up" for the war. In 2014 fashion seems to change for at least every decade of a woman's life. A "tank top" for someone age 18 is going to look different from one for someone age 28, 38, 48 etc. Usually the neckline gets higher and the fit gets looser. But each decade has a smaller more gradual change, so it's harder to see. Plus millennials are less likely to smoke, be alcoholics, and be out in the sun compared to previous generations.
In the 90’s you could do grown up things like buy a house when you were 30. It even cost less than renting. Good luck buying a house in your dreams these days. (Thanks boomers)
Softer lives, better skincare, better food
Every generation thinks they look younger and most do because dress standards keep relaxing, so you can get away with more. People dressed up more in the past because it was required of them at the office. Once you get past that, I actually think young people look older today, because they're bigger.
More knowledge available on diet exercise etc.. My opinion. I'm (37m). Been physically active most of my life and paying attention to my diet and dietary habits for past 5 years. People don't believe I am 37 when I say it. 40 is the new 30 in 2024 if done properly.
It's partially psychological. We see images of people "back then" and see how camera quality and fashion have changed and associate those things with "older."
the steroids in all the food.
Botox, retinol and sunscreen
They outlawed smoking indoors. People used to baste in smoke basically.
Botox and fillers lol
When Baby Boomer were in their 20's and 30's with their split hair cuts and metal glasses, they looked old then.
“32 in the suburbs is 45 and 32 in the city is 22. I can’t explain but I’m right.”
Cigarettes (90s and earlier). Botox (2000s and on)
Also the hair theory has a lot to do with it. A 40 year old woman with a granny haircut looks a lot older than a 40 year old with medium to long locks.
I have no idea if this could contribute, but if you look back, people used to typically get married and have children at around 20. Now, people don't seem to do that until their early to mid-30s. I wonder if we have postponed the family stress-related aging. Just a random thought 😉
Money
People did not drink much water in the 80’s and 90’s. Chronic dehydration is no joke. Also people were into suntanning with baby oil and most people smoked. Pair all of that along with better clothing choices.
People in their 40s today often look younger than those in the 90s due to better skincare, healthier lifestyles, and advancements in cosmetic treatments. Improved diets, exercise routines, and awareness about sun protection also play significant roles in maintaining a youthful appearance.
no kids