how come adults don’t look as ‘mature’ as they used to? I’m told it’s ‘neoteny’ but that answers nothing.

Question

As a millennial, I recognize that us 90’s kids just look like very tall teenagers, where as people our age back 30 to 40 years ago actually LOOKED like they were in their 20’s. Why is this?

In: Other

Answer 1

Other possible environmental factors have been suggested, but I’m going to throw one out there that I suspect may be more important than all of them: leaded petrol. It began to be phased out in the 80s and was banned in the 90s, so younger Millennials are the first generation to grow up without a shitload of atmospheric lead pollution.