In a cancel culture where there’s zero tolerance for prejudice, at least one form of discrimination appears to be alive and well: ageism. Whether you have personally experienced someone discounting you because of your age or you’ve felt the pressures to change your appearance as you age to appear younger (I’m talking to you gray hairs and anti-aging beauty products), ageism is real and, as it turns out it can affect your health.
“We should be able to accept our wrinkles without trying to look like a younger person,” Dr. Catherine Sarkisian, a geriatrician and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles says.
What is ageism?
Ageism involves prejudice based on people’s advancing age. It can be as overt as not hiring someone because they are older, or as subtle as giving a loved one a meant-to-be funny “you’re over the hill” birthday card.
And it turns out that nearly all older adults have experienced some form of ageism in their day-to-day lives, a new study shows.
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“Ageism may be the most common form of discrimination and the most socially condoned form,” says study author Julie Ober Allen, an assistant professor of health promotion at the University of Oklahoma.
“Awareness of how harmful racism, sexism, homophobia and other ‘-isms’ can be has increased in the last 60 years, but ageism still gets overlooked and ignored,” she adds.
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How ageism can affect your health
Allen led the study as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.
For the study, she and her colleagues examined poll results from more than 2,000 people between 50 and 80 years of age about their everyday experiences. The participants received a score based on their answers to 10 questions about their own experiences and beliefs about aging.
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The higher the score, the more likely folks were to be in poor physical or mental health, have chronic health conditions, and/or show signs of depression.
Fully 65% of respondents said they regularly see, hear or read jokes about older people, and 45% said they had more personal experiences, where others assumed they had trouble with technology, vision, hearing, or their memory because of their age.
However, all forms of ageism may not be inflicted by others. Some of it may be a result of your own worries and fears related to aging. In fact, some questions looked at internalized forms of ageism. Many people agreed that having health problems is part of getting older and that feeling lonely, depressed, sad or worried are part of it as well.
“Some older adults may laugh it off like it’s no big deal, but they may internalize it, and these internalized ageism beliefs and stereotypes may be the most harmful,” Allen shares. When internalized, ageism can affect mental and physical health, she adds.
“Like other -isms, ageism is a source of stress, and people have a stress response, so we expect the physical reactions will be the same,” Allen says.
Stress, we’ve all been there, right? In most cases, stress isn’t a huge cause of concern. However, once we start to internalize it and it becomes recurring, it can have an effect on our health.
Stress is known to increase heart rate, blood pressure, interfere with sleep, and dampen the immune system’s ability to fight off viruses, among other negative consequences.
Flipping the script
It’s time to flip the script, Allen says. “We need to recognize older adults as individuals, not stereotypes, and we should think about aging as another life stage as opposed to one marked by decline and demise,” she says.
Sarkisian says the study calls attention to a persistent problem. “The amount of ageism that is still tolerated is horrible,” she notes.
Older adults are the one group people are still allowed to make fun of, and this is not OK, Sarkisian adds. An older adult may internalize this prejudice and discrimination and that can affect his or her quality of life, she says.
Unfortunately, as we age we are at a higher risk for more health conditions. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a direct reflection of something you didn’t do right in your life when you were younger.
“Despite best efforts, people are going to develop health conditions with advancing age, and we don’t want people to feel like they failed at aging if they do,” she says.
The good news is despite the obstacles thrown your way, you can thrive in life at any age. Many older people lead full and active lives despite their health conditions, Sarkisian says.
The next time you have any negative thoughts about your age or appearance, think about all you’ve accomplished in your life. Aging is a blessing and a sign of wisdom. In this short life, many people don’t have the luxury of aging.
