Anti-Aging as Ageism?

Could the anti-aging facet of our current culture be nothing but ageism? Some are beginning to think so. Aging they say is part of nature, unavoidable and denying it is not helpful. It just reinforces our lack of acceptance.  They point to the fact that so much of all that is anti-aging is about appearance. What is also concerning some is that it is becoming so pervasive even Gen Z worry about looking old. The idea of anti-aging, sometimes referred to as successful aging, didn’t begin until the middle of the 20^th century with advances in medicine, new products and marketing. Now the idea of whether we age well or poorly seems to have become the result of a personal choice without factoring in the reality.

Anti-aging according to its critics is a way to strengthen the idea of longevity, which often is a way to avoid the idea of death—or more precisely, the reality of death. Some in the longevity research are really after the idea of immortality.

In 2017 the editor of Allure magazine made the decision it would no longer use the term anti-aging but would present aging as a condition we need to handle.  The decision has had ripple effect throughout what has become a $78 billion a year industry. Now many are promoting alternative ways to look at aging, some researchers are saying that to be anti-aging is to be anti-life simply because aging is a part of life.

Placing anti-aging in perspective and challenging its current connotations is indeed welcome. There’s so much more to a human being than appearance—or age!