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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I’ve thought about this too and honestly I think people eating healthier has alot to do with this. Like we don’t have the preservatives in our food from the 70sto90s. Cans of food used to not expire forever. Now maybe 2 years. All those chemicals gone.
My mom looks 50, she’s 76. It’s all relative to each person. My husband looks his age at 50ish. I look younger than my almost 50 age. My dad looked older than he was, he was a few years older than mom.
I, born in 1976 went to buy cigarettes at 27 and the lady goes “you don’t look more than 15!”. I gave her my ID and we had a good laugh.
I think it’s more genetics and how people dress and self care more than anything. And my self care I don’t mean anything special, I do soap and shampoo and water. And my dress is still jeans and a t shirt, unless it’s cold and I need a hoodie or a full on jacket.
Edit: Oh, I think diet plays a role along with substance abuse too.
Crazy test. Google some of the people you didn’t know well in high school.
I recently did this and was honestly shocked at how old they looked. I have a vague memory of what they looked like in high school. I don’t think I look old, I don’t think the people I’ve remained acquaintances look that much different to when they were in high school.
I did this after running across a comedian that grew up really close to my husband and is the same age as my husband. And he was joking about being middle aged.
Perception matters, but people have stopped smoking and started using sunblock a lot more. I think people are underestimating how much of an effect this has had.
Vsauce, Michael here. (Not really but you get it)
Here’s a video explaining this phenomenon in depth.
[Did people used to look older?](https://youtu.be/vjqt8T3tJIE?si=-K8XX2w0SLkq8cqg)
“Neoteny” is technically a genetics term that means an evolutionary change that results in the retention of younger features or characteristics into adulthood, i.e. a failure to progress to a more adult phase. This is something that requires selection over generations to produce, and happens if these younger characteristics are adaptive.
What may be at work here is that the hairstyles and clothing worn by people in older photos was youthful *at that time*, but is now only worn by old people — the same people that wore it back then.
If you look at the way young people dressed in any earlier era, what was youthful and different became “old people’s fashion”, and was then replaced by something else.
Look at the early cartoons of parents being shocked by the “dandy” or “macaroni” style of youth in the 1700.
Every generation seems to look younger than the last.
My grandparents looked younger than their parents, and so on…
There were a lot of chain smokers, people who were drinking a lot, and not a lot of sun block at all. It existed.. but all of those things age a person. Looking back at my grandparents and comparing myself, I look so much younger at an even older age.
I’ve always used sunblock, have never smoked, and at best am an occsional drinker.. but only a drink or two every few months at best.
Less smoking, more sunscreen. They wrote a song about sunscreen when I was a kid, now I wear it everyday
I bet one part is smoking. Boomers and before smoked a lot, you could smoke indoors in public places, work places, etc, and it ages your face a lot. Our generation(in NA, anyway) grew up largely without indoor smoking and a huge drop in the number of smoking adults.
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