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?
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For what its worth, as an 05’er I see videos of like class of 07 and 08 and think “good lord they look older than I do at the age of 18”
I’m an Xer who still looks much younger than my parents generation did in their 30s. There are huge differences, some are:
– Not as many people smoking.
– We have fewer kids, later in life.
– Less sun wear on us.
– Those that are financially more privileged are generally more active (gyms etc.) than Boomers that were more sedentary in the same class in middle age.
– Better skin care/makeup/grooming methods. For instance, even as guys, we have much better clippers and can groom our own facial hair/hair better than our parents, meaning that we can have a barber look daily.
– Being completely bald is completely fine, even when in your twenties, so a lot of balding guys just shave their heads, which looks “younger” than giant bald spots.
I’m going to guess here but probably a combination of the following:
*We’re much fatter now which can make you look younger than you are
*We haven’t all been smoking since we were twelve
*We spend far less time outdoors and when we do, we wear suncream (sun exposure ages your skin)
*Changing fashion
[This video by Vsauce](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE) blew my fricken mind… it’s crazy to have a scientific answer to this phenomenon.
My 2 cents. I think people were alot leaner back then. Most jobs were more physical than today and they would’ve had to spend alot more time and energy choring eg. Washing by hand, sweeping etc. They also had better(but less varied) diets so their faces look a little gaunt compared to people today.
I agree with the comments about our perception, sun exposure, sunscreen, less tobacco and alcohol and dressing more casually than people from older generations.
I’d add that we behave in ways that are considered less mature too. For many of us, games are still a big part of our lives (videogames, board games, role playing games). We’ve got a culture of childhood nostalgia that adults rarely had when we were kids. We’ve got t-shirts with references to our favourite pop culture bits, posters…
And many of us don’t have kids in our 30s. Many of us don’t own their homes. Many of us don’t have stable jobs – anyway, what’s a stable job today? Now we’re supposed to stay 3 years in a company and move on.
So we feel and behave very differently from the adult models from previous generations. We behave and present more like what we’d expect from teenagers and young adults. This impacts our perception about how mature we appear.
In a few generations, this might be what adulthood looks like though.
I think a large part of it is also skin care. Prior to millennial generations, tanning was big, sunscreen was not, and millennial was the first generation where that really changed.
My mom actually brought this up (I’m 38, she’s in her mid 60’s). When she was a kid, you were outside a lot, and not wearing sunscreen, and tan was in. Whereas when I was a kid, my mom was lathering me up, and those habits stuck.
Photoaging of skin is a huge thing
I don’t know. If you look at the casts of “Golden Girls” and “And Just Like That,” it is beyond the dated hairstyles and clothes. The former just looks a lot older, despite being the same age.
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.
Diet and the lack of decent foods low in fats sugar and salt air pollution coal and gas fires for heating and cooking, heavy manual work, stress and late raising of children, and heavy drinking all contributed to early aging.
There are more causes I am certain.
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