Recent Gallup data found that “U.S. seniors are more likely than other age groups to say they always feel good about their physical appearance. Men are more confident than women about their looks..” These findings are part of the 2014 “Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey“.
But here’s an important fact which Gallup puts this way, “..older Americans’ looks are generally out of sync with the youthful standard of beauty that prevails in American culture, and yet they are most happy with what they see in the mirror.”
Could some of this be a product of this senior generation living their formative years in a culture which respected Judeo-Christian values, including ones about beauty? Could their formative years in a culture which had a lower value on the superficial and a limited suite of technology to exaggerate it have contributed to this? Today’s marketing, print and motion media persistently presents us with artificially modified of images of how you should look. Little wonder there’s a tendency to feel inadequate about one’s appearance, especially if you are a woman.
This fits perfectly with God’s urge for us to renew our minds since if you think about it, this is all to do with perspective. And perspective starts in the mind. Get the right one.