Millennials more worried about ageing than any other generation

A Scandinavian health and beauty brand has revealed the most common worries about ageing amongst Brits, showing that many have been affected by lockdown pressures with searches for body confidence up by two fifths.

The research comes as the extreme fear of ageing, gerascophobia, has been found to be increasingly common among over 25’s.

With online home workouts such as Joe Wicks receiving almost one million views per video, and a spend of over £32 billion on personal care in the UK in 2019*, New Nordic wanted to find out what our 2020 view is on ageing, what our common body worries are and how we can feel happier in our own skin.

The survey of over 1,000 Brits looked into our current body queries, finding that 87 per cent are worried about ageing, millennials being the generation most concerned. Joint pain (45%), wrinkles (34%) and gaining weight (33%) were most frequently noted as ageing concerns and over 30,000 of us are looking for answers about Botox each month.

For millennials, 91 per cent are worried about ageing; five per cent more than their elder counterparts Xennials and six per cent more than Generation Z.

And with added pressures of lockdown, 88 per cent now feel more conscious of their body since lockdown.

Of these worries, hair and skin are the biggest concerns with over a quarter feeling more self-conscious about them since lockdown. Other areas of worries are eyes (22%), stomach (19%), feet (17%) and bottom (15%).

According to the findings, millennials are one of the generations most worried about wrinkles (35%) with over a third (38%) preparing to take better care of their skin and 23 per cent wearing SPF more regularly.

Restrictions on exercise and leaving the house has left many being less active than they are used to this summer. This has become a concern with 35 per cent of millennials worried about gaining weight as they grow older and more than half (51%) wanting to improve their diet.

For a fifth of millennials, their hair is their favourite part of their body. With added stress of lockdown however, three in 10 are now feeling more self-conscious about their hair and a quarter are worried about loosing it and the colour fading.

Although these changes occur to all of us as we age, almost four in 10 millennials (36%) are sad that their body is no longer what it was and a third feel self-conscious about the changes.

For some, they are embracing the change (23%) and feel more confident as they grow older (24%).

Millennial’s top 10 ageing worries