Or are ALL children/ teens better looking these days?

[UnreasonabIe]

I'm 44, in my day my friends, and certainly me, weren't as good looking as every young person I come across now. Does anyone else notice this? Is this evolution? Is it looking through some kind of older person lens? Looking back at old photos of us doesn't change my mind either.
I'm going to think my daughter is the most beautiful person inside and out and wouldn't give two hoots regardless, however all her friends, boys and girls, seem the same..... I noticed it on the last day of school as all the children were coming out and commented to a fellow Mum about it who agreed.

Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon?

Almost definitely better nutrition. When I think what I ate as a child, it was nothing like as good nutritionally as today's children get. On the whole they get more fruit and veg.

It's very superficial - long coloured hair, fake lashes, done brows. The plainist can look glam. There isn't a sudden increase in natural beauty. Sad really - too much effort and thought. I don't think boys have changed - better hair styles.

Agreed so much more available to them, and playing sport, fitness and health are important to the youth of today.

We live in an area where a few times a year we get in influx of rich American teens to take part in a sporting event and wow I mean you can really see a difference! They are all so tall and well built! Great teeth and tanned healthy looking.
They make our local pasty teens look like cave dwellers

I am very fortunate to live in what is classed as a very desirable area of Liverpool but I know the "deprived' areas you mention, but you could just as easily say parts of London, parts of the south east etc. Liverpool doesn't need to be singed out. There are a lot of very good looking people of all ages in Liverpool, it's not all hideous scouse brow and fake tan (which is a horrible look). Also, there are many non deprived people living in those areas and their children and those of people experiencing poverty look entirely normal. You use the phrase 'normal enough' as if children from deprived areas are somehow sub human.

They're definitely more good looking! But not naturally so.
They watch YouTube to see how to do hair and makeup, they know about a healthy diet and exercise..
My generation all looked like orange trolls, seriously.

Hair straighteners, contouring, expert make up as YouTube classes at your fingertips etc, fashion. The kids themselves are not prettier, but they know how to present themselves in the best way much earlier now

I don’t do paediatrics, but certainly in adult neuro we were starting to see new problems in middle aged adults that my older colleagues had not encountered simply because people with those problems would not have survived to middle age (if indeed at all) in previous years.

I think nutrition has so much to do with this along with grooming and heating as mentioned. Anecdotally my dd’s friend went on a trip with school only for a few days. She couldn’t eat the meat offered for religious reasons. She said everything was heavily fried. Once home she missed a couple of days of school as she was so run down from it. Her normally lovely skin looked awful when she came over a week later.

A lot of kids were living on this sort of food in the 70s and 80s. Coupled with infrequent washing, no wonder a lot of people’s skin and hair was so bad even without the lack of grooming. And why everyone was so much smaller.

I think it is because kids know from a very early age how to do themselves up. We didnt have tutorials and our parents didnt give us loads of money to buy stuff.

For example, I didn't know how to deal with my naturally curly hair and so it was always a frizzy mop. I didn't really know how to freeze my eyebrows properly either. When I look back at pics, I look truly awful as a teenager but once at uni I looked good. I knew how to deal with my hair and what clothes flattered me. I also didn't really have a budget to do anything and I wasn't allowed to wear make up either.

I agree in so many ways. Possibly on the flip side though, those girls, who are considered or consider themselves ‘plain’ may be ecstatic to be seen as beautiful.

No, I don't. I feel sad when I see the overweight, pornified , vaping boy and girls leaving the secondary near me.

Not sure about ‘better looking’ as that’s subjective but there’s a hell of a lot more kids who you’d class as overweight compared to when I was at school when you’d stick out like a sore thumb if you were (I’m 40 for reference)

I think they have better hair and skin but I see more overweight young people these days. When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s there wasn’t any young people who were overweight. We did a lot more out doors and when we were teenagers we seemed to walk everywhere. No one dieted though or snacked much. Now it’s all about Starbucks, kids are driven everywhere, they eat fast food every week instead of an occasional treat. There is more body positivity now too and all sizes are celebrated.

I watched that last night! Really interesting, and his other videos too.

Nasty post.

I would say its also the evolution of time - straighteners, kids getting into make up and hair younger, change of clothes...

When I was 10 I had wild curly hair that i barely brushed and wore my brother's hand me down joggies. Quite different from the 10 year olds I see now.

That was really interesting. I think a lot of the current styles (especially the flowery, frilled sacks!) look REALLY frumpy-old-person. But I’m 44 a no fashion designers target! I bet someone in their twenties has hardly seen them, as people in their sixties and seventies now wear jeans etc and not flowery dresses. It’s definitely partly perception.

Though I still reckon you could drop Audrey Hepburn into any decade you like and she’d look amazing. (Perhaps a smidge quirkily vintage sometimes, but not always even that and rarely even a bit frumpy or old fashioned, except for the suits). Princess Kate, too. The Queen and Diana almost (the queen is a tiny bit too conservative, which frumpifies her look a teeny bit, although she looks great. Diana was a bit too ‘on trend’, which ties her to eras in the opposite way. (Camilla walks a good line in dressing conservatively enough to be unremarkable, but well enough to be appropriate and also unremarkable. That can’t be easy!). I mention the Royals because historically they would have been very flamboyant trendsetters, but now seem to be distancing themselves from that, in the same way weight has flipped from being associated with wealth, to poverty, we now see conspicuous fashion being perceived as somehow a bit showy and trying too hard.

It’s interesting how weight is perceived. It used to be associated with wealth, and now with poverty. I also associate a lot of visible effort into beautification with lower income (not necessarily poverty. You have to have something spare to have lashes and nails. Just that there are people who want very visible wealth, perhaps because they are very proud of it. And if that makes people feel good about themselves, all power to them. I’m observing, not judging). Tattoos seem to be going the same way. Fascinating.

Re teens, there is more investment in hair for both boys and girls, girls wear more make up, and thanks to the Internet apply it more skillfully. Fashionable clothes are cheaper. All of it helps to elevate appearance. They are also sporting the fashion and asthetic of today, which is bound to compare more favourably with old photos where the look is dated. So all in all, they may look better, but I don't think their natural looks are much different. They do tend to look taller and bigger though.

Better nutrition and interest in health and lifestyle from an earlier age. More treatments available more cheaply, being brought up by a generation of parents who may be more likely to intervene earlier in dental work and dermatology.

And despite what was claimed when we were still in the one bath a week and never wash your hair during a period era, it's clear that cleanliness/daily showers does have an effect upon the majority of teenagers' skin, leaving just the few who have cystic acne to get proper treatment.

I don't agree, teens generally are better presented but aren't a better looking generation per se.
There's definitely an increase in obesity though compared to previous generations, which is a ticking timebomb health wise.

It's not evolution - that takes thousands of years.

What you're seeing is the general advancement of health and well-being, early intervention and better nutrition.

I'm a primary supply teacher, and work in all sorts of areas. In the stereotypically deprived areas, I still see a lot more of the "ugly" kids. The kids who look more like the kids I grew up with.

In the leafy middle class professional villages I also work in, kids are generally better looking, and healthier looking. But that's also down to parents and genetics.

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s there wasn’t any young people who were overweight.

I definitely remember chubby kids in those days & there wasn't lots of skinny young adults particularly amongst our parents. I don't remember any mums or dads having 6 packs

It probably differs a little depending on secondary age and primary age.

Secondary age - definitely better fashions, more money, kids more attuned (for better and worse) to social media and appearance. I’m in that Gen X generation where we had daily showers, hair washes, clean uniform, reasonable nutrition etc.; but parents were bothered about health not cosmetics or looks. My mum cared about my teeth and diet, but the outlook of the day was about healthy teeth and the cosmetic look of them was considered frivolous. Same with clothes - my mum bought clothes for us from John Lewis, M&S etc. but it was more practicality, and she did not get involved in how they looked (hairstyles too). I had a pretty face underneath and was washed and clean with a decent diet, but I had an unflattering haircut, NHS bottle specs and unflattering clothes, but then in those days mothers didn’t see their job as making you look pretty - and very definitely my own mum didn’t!

There was also a bit more of an awareness that magazines etc. were a bit unrealistic, and you might dress up and do makeup and hair for a special occasion, but the rest of the time you were just in your school uniform or a t-shirt and jeans looking normal and “ungroomed” — but that was just normal life. As for learning makeup and what suited us - that was just trial and error and your mum left you to it. You would also as pp have said, have had far less money available to try out different styles and products — the ethos was very much that that was for when you were older and earned your own money.

Acne treatments are a lot better now than they were. When I was a teen there was pretty much nothing between Clearsasil or topical antibiotics, and going the whole hog with Rocaccutane, which GPs were very reluctant to prescribe unless it was very severe, because it can have serious side effects and needs liver monitoring and contraception whilst on it, especially for girls.

Now there are a lot more effective topical retinoids that can clear moderate acne without the really harsh effects of the severe drugs. I was prescribed a new retinoid gel in my 20s after it had just been licensed and it was a complete game-changer - if it had been available ten years earlier I could have saved a lot of that teenage acne angst.

I’m not sure that the current age where teenagers are very hyper-aware of appearance is wonderful, though. There’s something to be said for allowing teenagers just to be teenagers and not be quite as obsessed with appearance. (Also, bear in mind that lots of us in previous generations also went to single sex high schools, which has been far less the case since the 2010s when most schools apart from top grammars and independents have now gone fully co-ed.)

My friend and I talked about this, we're about the same age as you op and we both have older teen dds.

When I was a teen I barely wore any make up, didn't own straighteners and wore various mismatched clothes as did most teens in the 90s.

Our teen dds are much more aware of their appearance, have lots of make up and hair stuff.

I think it's having to be permanently Snapchat ready and it's not a good thing.

My dd feels a lot of pressure to look a certain way and developed an ED as a result 😢