In denial that you’ve reached middle age?
A survey identifies some telltale signs
By Margaret Shapiro, WashPost, Monday, December 16, 10:02 AM
How do you know you’re middle-aged? How about when you wear clothes and shoes based on comfort rather than style, or grow hair in all the wrong places: nose, ears, eyebrows? Those are just two of the signs mentioned in a recent British survey about when middle age begins and how to identify it.
The 2,000 people surveyed by Benenden, a health-care and insurance firm, also made clear that middle age was no longer something for 30- or 40-year-olds to worry about. The life change, they said, began at 53. In fact, nearly half of the older-than-50s who were surveyed said they personally had not experienced “middle age” yet.
“A variety of factors — including more active lifestyles and healthier living — mean that people find their attitudes towards getting older are changing. Over half of the people surveyed didn’t feel that there even was such a thing as ‘middle age’ anymore,” Paul Keenan, head of communications at Benenden Health, said in a statement when the survey was released in August.
“Being ‘old’ appears to be a state of mind rather than being a specific age,” he added. “People no longer see ‘middle age’ as a numerical milestone and don’t tend to think of themselves as ‘old’ as they hit their fifties and beyond. I’m 54 myself, with the mind-set of a thirty-something — perhaps sometimes even that of a teenager!”
(More here.)
By Margaret Shapiro, WashPost, Monday, December 16, 10:02 AM
How do you know you’re middle-aged? How about when you wear clothes and shoes based on comfort rather than style, or grow hair in all the wrong places: nose, ears, eyebrows? Those are just two of the signs mentioned in a recent British survey about when middle age begins and how to identify it.
The 2,000 people surveyed by Benenden, a health-care and insurance firm, also made clear that middle age was no longer something for 30- or 40-year-olds to worry about. The life change, they said, began at 53. In fact, nearly half of the older-than-50s who were surveyed said they personally had not experienced “middle age” yet.
“A variety of factors — including more active lifestyles and healthier living — mean that people find their attitudes towards getting older are changing. Over half of the people surveyed didn’t feel that there even was such a thing as ‘middle age’ anymore,” Paul Keenan, head of communications at Benenden Health, said in a statement when the survey was released in August.
“Being ‘old’ appears to be a state of mind rather than being a specific age,” he added. “People no longer see ‘middle age’ as a numerical milestone and don’t tend to think of themselves as ‘old’ as they hit their fifties and beyond. I’m 54 myself, with the mind-set of a thirty-something — perhaps sometimes even that of a teenager!”
(More here.)
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