Wellness News

Slowing down the aging clock is a matter of choice
By Angelena Craig

Originally published in The Essex County Newspapers.

Aging is a hot issue. Anti-aging has become the trendy buzzword, directed especially at baby boomers, those post-World War II babies born between 1946 and 1964.
These are the people who are paying close attention to the inevitable aging process, wanting to do it differently than perhaps their parents and certainly their grandparents. Rather than sliding easily into a life of retirement, these individuals, who are now 43 to 64, want to continue working, stay healthy and, all importantly, keep looking good.

The first red flag telling us we are getting older may occur in our 40-year-old faces, when the skin starts to lose its vitality and its ability to retain moisture. Then, those telltale lines and wrinkles show up.

What to do? For starters, there are the endless hair and skin improvement products lining store shelves that promise to help us in our quest to stay youthful looking.

Take a look at Dove products, for instance. We may remember Dove for its creamy hand soap that has been around for years. But now the company offers a complete beauty line for hair and skin enhancement.

To give itself an edge in the competitive beauty market, Dove launched a brilliant marketing campaign called "Dove Pro-Age." In this new strategy to reach the boomers, Dove invites women "in their best years to show the world beauty has no age limit."

The Dove campaign featured a casting call for real people to appear in its commercials..The company successfully recruited women who were willing to show all, agreeing to be interviewed and, if chosen, photographed in their underwear by noted photographer Annie Leibovitz. The original winners appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and their photographs were in magazine ads and, can you believe, on a billboard in New York's Times Square for all to see.

Dove had to close its model search after huge numbers of women came forward to show the world that beauty of face and body, with all its wrinkles, sags and imperfections,.does, in fact, have no age limit.

Aside from products, there are now all kinds of interventions to improve the skin, starting with lasers for skin resurfacing, Botox and other injections to plump up the face..Surgery is always an option for those who want more radical changes in their sagging eyes or chin line.

Is it just vanity that motivates us to spend a small fortune on these products and procedures? Or is it a way to hold onto a more attractive and rested look?.

In a competitive world where youth and beauty are adored and the elderly are greatly and sadly marginalized, taking steps to look healthy and younger may be thought of as just one more step in taking care of oneself.

But this is only the outer self. Aging, of course, affects what is going on inside. With aging, our cells do not multiply as they once did. Joints, muscles and organs are all affected by aging.

Just as with the skin, there is a vast smorgasbord of options to slow down the body's aging. Help is available through vitamins, herbs, healing practices like massage and yoga to reduce stress, and that old standby, pharmaceutical drugs.

As in all health matters, we must become informed consumers. The choices abound and the scientific research and evidence concerning slowing down aging.are readily available in medical journals and newsletters. There is no excuse for giving up and giving in to being old. Yes, aging is a process that is undeniable, but we can have some control over remaining ageless and timeless throughout our accumulating years and decades.

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