Baby Boomers Age And Beauty

Drawing from a variety of sources from ageing research, history and gender studies, this book is a rich exploration of the baby boomers - those coming of age in the sixties and now entering old age - the influences that have shaped how they perceive ageing appearance, define ageing and beauty, and the meaning of appearance, beauty, and identity.

This ground-breaking study of the baby boomer generation, who are now entering old age, breaks new ground in ageing research. This post-war cohort has experienced a range of social, cultural, and medical changes in regard to their notions of body, from the introduction of the Pill and the decoupling of sex and procreation to the H-Bomb and Earthrise. Yet, paradoxically, ageing is also universal. This exciting book reflects the intersection of time, ageing, body and identity to give a more nuanced and enlightened understanding of the ageing process.

Drawing from a variety of sources from ageing research, history and gender studies, this book is a rich exploration of the baby boomers - those coming of age in the sixties and now entering old age - the influences that have shaped how they perceive ageing appearance, define ageing and beauty, and the meaning of appearance, beauty, and identity.

The baby boomers have always been seen as a deeply symbolic generation - born amid a surge of post-war optimism and reaching adulthood in the 1960s. For many of them, challenging received wisdom is deeply embedded in their own self-image. But one problem in thinking about British baby boomers is that very little original research has addressed them directly. This report takes on the challenge of exploring the hopes and fears of a group of people who may help to reshape the meaning of 'old age'. By talking directly to them in depth, we have tested assumptions about how age, sex, marital status and ethnicity impact on the values of British baby boomers. We have also investigated their attitudes to dying, which if they have their way is likely to become the ultimate consumer service. Some firms are already waking up to the fact that, while youth culture might be 'cool', it is far cooler to profit from the well-heeled baby boomers. But as the baby boomers continue to march towards old age, the financial clout they wield will be less important than the new ways in which they will want to spend their money. The combination of wealth, health and longer life gives them a new phase of life. Baby boomers want to 'have their time again', by chasing personal fulfilment free from the pressures of overwork and childrearing. From middle-aged men and women on motorbikes to new beauty products and treatments and music retailing, the dominance of baby boomers can only grow. This project was produced in partnership with Centrica, the principal funder, and the Saga group.

Baby Boomers were at the forefront of change in the Sixties and Seventies and will be a force to be reckoned with as they reach the age when, in the past, older people seemed to fade from view. Redefining ageing is the Baby Boomer's next big challenge!

Aging is a preoccupation shared by beauty bloggers, serious journalists, scientists, doctors, celebrities—arguably all of adult America, given the pervasiveness of the crusade against it in popular culture and the media. We take our youth-oriented culture as a given but, as Lawrence R. Samuel argues, this was not always the case. Old age was revered in early America, in part because it was so rare. Indeed, it was not until the 1960s, according to Samuel, that the story of aging in America became the one we are most familiar with today: aging is a disease that science will one day cure, and in the meantime, signs of aging should be prevented, masked, and treated as a source of shame. By tracing the story of aging in the United States over the course of the last half century, Samuel vividly demonstrates the ways in which getting older tangibly contradicts the prevailing social values and attitudes of our youth-obsessed culture. As a result, tens of millions of adults approaching their sixties and seventies in this decade do not know how to age, as they were never prepared to do so. Despite recent trends that suggest a more positive outlook, getting old is still viewed in terms of physical and cognitive decline, resulting in discrimination in the workplace and marginalization in social life. Samuels concludes Aging in America by exhorting his fellow baby boomers to use their economic clout and sheer numbers to change the narrative of aging in America.

Focusing on the Baby Boomer generation, this argument explores how this group is permanently destroying previous attitudes toward aging, retirement, senior citizens, and even the concept of death. An analysis of welfare rates and health-care costs demonstrates that the Boomers are influencing everything from education and employment to housing, health, beauty, and sex. With solid statistical support, this groundbreaking study takes a closer look at new kinds of social relationships as well as new products that can reduce or even eliminate the effects of aging. The topics covered offer a sneak preview of an imminently new societyone in which receiving a gold watch at the age of 65 will simply mean the first half of life is over.