Mirror Mirror on the Wall

November 24, 2009

A new survey out of Great Britain this week claims that women aged 35 to 70 worry about their appearance an average of 250 times per week. If indeed true, it would be reasonable to assume that the obsession of modern society to devalue the grace and confidence of aging in favor of a lifetime of “youthful” appearance is a trend that continues to spread around the globe.

The study devised by British fitness instructor Irene Estry and psychologist Emma Kenny, aimed to see if a looks-obsessed society creates a nagging sense of agism and endless pressure on individual women to stay young. Each of the women surveyed was given a simple hand counter and asked to register a click each time they worried about their own process of aging. That could be anything from a fleeting look in the mirror to a passing thought at any point during the day. Over seven days, the 100 women averaged 252 clicks, which is a total of 36 clicks per day. As Britain’s Daily Mail suggested, “The results of the experiment point to an epidemic of insecurity in British women today, and one that seems to worsen as women mature. Far from finding confidence with growing age, it seems that many women become increasingly insecure and troubled.”

One of the participants, Sherrie Hewson, 59, explained her age related concerns to the Daily Mail: “When I look in the mirror, my overriding thought is: ‘I don’t know this person.’ I wake up to this face, and I feel as though it’s someone else’s. All I see in the mirror is age creeping up on me. Listening to other women, they are saying what I’m saying when you think it’s only you. There are so many of us there’s got to be a common denominator, so we’ve got to get together and change it, and change us,” Hewson added.

Hewson, who had a facelift ten years ago, was way above average in the number of clicks she totaled in the week, reaching over 1,o00 times in seven day period. In her waking hours, she experienced a negative thought about her appearance approximately every five minutes.

While Hewson’s results were somewhat extreme, the survey itself points in a troubling direction for women on both sides of the Atlantic. The desire to maintain a healthy and youthful glow is spiraling up and perhaps out of control as more and more women, and now an increasing number of men, turn to a variety of procedures from countless facials, to botox, to facelifts, all in the hope of cheating the aging process.

While the study itself was clearly not a scientific or scholarly one, it does make the point, in a rather dramatic fashion, that our obsession with youth to the exclusion of so many other aspects of our journey through life can claim a heavy toll on our overall happiness. It’s difficult to say what if any thing will reverse this trend.

One can only hope that in the years to come more of us will awaken to the fact that the wisdom in our minds and the kindness in our hearts represent more of what we truly are to ourselves and to others than the aging visage staring back at us from that uncaring mirror on the wall.

Posted in Personal Growth, Wellness