Are people looking younger these days or is it just a typical symptom of ageing ?

[WildRosie]

I have three older sisters aged between 56 and 59 but they really don't look it. My piano teacher is 50 but you could reasonably think she is early 40s. I'll be 50 in a few months but, apart from an increasing amount of grey hair on an otherwise full head of hair, I think I still look quite youthful (preens). I admit I could lose a little weight, mind. Is it just me that thinks like this ?

I think it’s all relative and the people that are in your age group do look younger and you also imagine that you do until you see yourself unawares in a mirror and think what is my mother doing there or who is that old woman

I’m older than you OP, early 60s so maybe you haven’t got to that stage yet, I look in the mirror and do see a slightly younger looking person but as my eyesight is slightly failing it probably gives me that softer slightly blurry look like soft focus

I remember when my parents hit 50, six years apart. Neither really looked it and both managed to hang on to their natural hair colour which might have influenced my perception. My Mum hardly had any grey hair right up until her final days but Dad went from black to grey fairly quickly and he definitely had a more aged appearance by the time he was sixty. Plus he'd lost most of his teeth by then too!

I'm not specifically parent-bashing. I'm just using the examples I knew best.

I don’t think you really notice people close to you ageing. My friends from uni look the same to me now as they did 20+ years ago but sometimes when I meet new people my age I’m shocked how old they look.

I think on average people are looking younger. They don't tend to change clothes style the way that my grandmother's generation did so people in their 70s can wear the sort of clothes that people in their 30s wear and it doesn't look like mutton dressed as lamb. People smoke less than my mother's generation and use sunscreen so on average people have fewer wrinkles.

I caught up with a large group of my old friends last year and we all looked ancient, it was surreal.

On the other hand, I had to see a locum GP last week who looked about 15.

Clicked on a local news article earlier with a photo of a new secondary headteacher... he was my coursemate on my PGCE so is around the same age. Being a headteacher must be aging

Mind you I wonder who these middle aged people creeping into my FB newsfeed are, and it's my classmates from school. I just haven't changed substantially yet.

It is easier to have flattering clothes/ hair / make-up which helps keep people looking younger. You don't have to have middle-aged uniform hair and clothes just because you're over 35 now.