One topic that was discussed within the previous two weeks that stood out to me was the advertising of beauty products as “anti-aging” and the prevalence of negative attitudes towards aging. The discussion surrounding the book presented by some of my fellow students in the LCS class, Selling the Fountain of Youth: How the Anti-aging Industry Made a Disease Out of Getting Old – and Made Billions by Arlene Weintraub, demonstrated how various industries, including the entertainment industry, have further pushed social conditions that encourage people to fear getting older, both physically and mentally. This is further supported by regulatory conditions, including a lack of overview by the FDA for various “anti-aging” products, which are supported by dubious results in research. While the social conditions of beauty expectations and desiring youthfulness have existed for a long time, various companies capitalizing on them have recently pushed them into expanding demographics, both for younger and older audiences. In addition, we also discussed various ideas for our Healthy Aging Proposal for the following quarter, where we invest time and resources into a project aimed at benefiting senior citizens. My goal with this project is to focus on perception, as harmful stereotypes exist surrounding senior citizens, such as having unhappy lives or being unable to communicate effectively. In order to combat this, my idea was to produce a video that interviewed several senior citizens, which would center on a theme, such as past experiences. Furthermore, we volunteered in-person to assembly gift bags to be distributed to various programs focusing on the elderly and the homeless. It was nice being able to see other people during these times and to contribute my time into a cause for the sake of others.
In reflecting on this past week for the Life Course Scholars program, with this being an introductory post, I thought about the path that I have taken academically up to this point and how these concepts connect. When starting with the USP minor, I took USP 144, which involves environmental factors in public health, USP 143, which discusses health-care systems, and USP 145, which surrounds aging and related issues. I had also taken USP 133, which centers around poverty and public policy. All of these classes contribute to the connections that can be made in this course, as the conditions that one has grown up in continues to affect individuals into adulthood and as seniors. In addition, social welfare programs such as Medicare and Social Security are significant to the senior population by improving their health outcomes and greatly lifting the demographic out of poverty since the 1940s. These programs being often heavily debated during elections drive higher voter outcomes from older groups. In the past week, the lecture discussed the accommodations that can be made to better serve the elderly population, including Transit-Oriented Development (TODs), which involves the incorporation of public transport into daily living. This would not only benefit seniors, but other underserved populations that may not own cars. I also found the discussion regarding playgrounds for senior citizens to be interesting, as that contradicts how they are depicted in popular media, where they are too “fragile” to move around. Finally, the discussion about how we see ourselves as 80-year-olds was thought-provoking. Due to the rushed nature of life right now, I never thought about life that far in advanced. However, the most appealing idea is being in a stable place, as being rushed right now creates stresses that may be resolved with age.
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Martin NguyenMartin is a Biochemistry/Cell Biology major from Garden Grove, CA. A fun fact about Martin is that he played tennis in high school. Archives
April 2021
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