Men give up on their appearance at the age of 46 while women give up at 59

[ICEMAN69]

Interesting. I do believe this is fairly accurate in that men give up early on their looks. Unfortunately it's the old, "well now that I've found a woman, married her and have regular sex, I can let myself fall completely apart."

 

My own observations would be that women give up before 59. As with all studies, these are generalizations of the population and there are always exceptions.

 

Thoughts?

 

Men give up on their appearance at the age of 46 - while women work on their looks for a further decade | Daily Mail Online

[central]

Sounds about right from what I've seen. Men give up sooner, partly because most never much cared about fashion or looking good in nice clothes. A desire for comfort and convenience combined with complacency and other priorities makes appearance a low priority. Until their sorry butts end up divorced, and then men and women both typically make appearance a priority to attract the next mate.

 

Of course, many exceptions exist at both ends of the spectrum.

[dangerous]

Depends on one's situation, amongst other things.

 

If you find yourself single at a later age, many will smarten themselves up, get fitter etc.

 

Personally, I find it depressing whenever I mingle with over 45's single groups there are SO many overweight people who really don't make the effort.

 

The flipside is that if you DO make the effort then you will rise well up the league tables for attraction to the opposite sex

[ICEMAN69]

Sounds about right from what I've seen. Men give up sooner, partly because most never much cared about fashion or looking good in nice clothes. A desire for comfort and convenience combined with complacency and other priorities makes appearance a low priority. Until their sorry butts end up divorced, and then men and women both typically make appearance a priority to attract the next mate.

 

Of course, many exceptions exist at both ends of the spectrum.

 

I lean a bit more toward comfort as I get older as well, but I also try to stay fashionable. I purchase young men's clothing because they fit me (I'm in my 50s but have an athletic build) better, and I hate regular men's clothing which is built for overweight middle-aged guys.

 

I agree with you comments. When men and women get left by their S/O they often hit the reset button to make themselves more marketable. It's funny because I don't really even understand that approach. I've always kept on top of my weight and fitness and it wouldn't matter if I was single, married, GF, whatever. I just like myself better and have more self-respect for me when I'm on top of my physique / fitness.

[ICEMAN69]

Depends on one's situation, amongst other things.

 

If you find yourself single at a later age, many will smarten themselves up, get fitter etc.

 

Personally, I find it depressing whenever I mingle with over 45's single groups there are SO many overweight people who really don't make the effort.

 

The flipside is that if you DO make the effort then you will rise well up the league tables for attraction to the opposite sex

 

There you go! Make yourself stand out by staying on top of your game!

[SammySammy]

I’m not sure that’s true in the US where about half the population is considered obese.

 

It may have been true in the past, but there are a lot of fat 20-, 30-, and 40-year-olds (men and women) out there who don’t seem to care much about their health much less their appearance.

[alphamale]

ones looks are a work in progress so you should never give up on them

[AngryGromit]

I guess it depends on what you mean by appearance. Are you referring to the clothes you wear? Or your weight? Or if you dye/cut/curl your hair? bathing/perfume? Or all of the above.

[CptInsano]

Where I live it generally starts in the mid-twenties, assuming people ever had something to give up. I also cannot say that men are worse than women, or vice versa. People will assume you are much younger if you are in shape, even if your face tells your actual age.

[wmacbride]

I’m not sure that’s true in the US where about half the population is considered obese.

 

It may have been true in the past, but there are a lot of fat 20-, 30-, and 40-year-olds (men and women) out there who don’t seem to care much about their health much less their appearance.

 

This is true here too. I was getting some bloodwork done at the hospital the other day. It was really sad to see how many young people were obese.

[ICEMAN69]

I’m not sure that’s true in the US where about half the population is considered obese.

 

It may have been true in the past, but there are a lot of fat 20-, 30-, and 40-year-olds (men and women) out there who don’t seem to care much about their health much less their appearance.

 

100% Agree

[ICEMAN69]

I guess it depends on what you mean by appearance. Are you referring to the clothes you wear? Or your weight? Or if you dye/cut/curl your hair? bathing/perfume? Or all of the above.

 

The article seemed to indicate all of the above.

[LuckyM]

A very broad generalization. Plenty of ladies dress very nicely all their life even age 90. Some never do at all. Some men give up even earlier.It's a matter of self pride--appearing as a gentleman or lady. Varies by the nation and culture.

I see as many women in the gym as guys where I am. I notice weight stays about the same.

The Daily Mail is not so reliable, is it?

[carhill]

When reading this thread and the article, I was reminded of a video I watched the other day, an

and chuckled a bit while watching the crowds in it because that's how things were for us back then. Cultural and societal norms have changed over time. Those of us dionsaurs who were socialized in a different time may still have holdovers from those eras. Others not. A lot of us younger folks rebelled in the 60's and 70's and then socialized our kids into that more laid back turn on, tune in drop out lifestyle. Hence I'd see the milieu more as cultural/societal than age-related. However, people do live longer now, in general, and society supports more freedom of choice than in the more conformist past so some people take advantage of that to be 'into' appearance for some of their life and 'whatever' about it for other parts of their life.

 

Myself, I probably paid more attention to my appearance while married because, one, we did a lot more public stuff while married and, two, exW worked in the image industry so was attentive to appearances.

 

And, yeah, I'll wear a collared shirt, dress slacks and sometimes a sport coat when flying up front. Old habits die hard

[GemmaUK]

I know of very few women who take no care of their appearance and definitely more men who don't or only do the minimum.

 

Men I have met tell me that they will spruce up, lose weight, buy new clothes, get a haircut etc when they find a girlfriend - a thinking which seems skewed to me.

Why not do that in order to help get a girlfriend?

 

I recall Mr Egg Stain who met me for a first meet - yeah with an egg stain from his breakfast (which he had at home) around 6 hours before our meet time.

He lived in the town we met in so didn't have hours to travel, just a short walk.

He told me that if I was his gf he would never have come out like that but as it was a just first meet he deemed it to be appropriate.

 

ETA: The age range I am talking here is late 30's to late 40's and up.

[BarbedFenceRider]

I'm not so sure about this...At 40, I was training for a taekwondo championship. At 41, I had worked at a cattle ranch. 42 got my advanced diver cert. and love spearfishing. I have continually trained and worked out to keep my health up, maybe even more as of late...

 

As for appearance, I am clean shaven, (Wet shaving is one of my hobbies) and I get a haircut regularly. My wife does pick a lot of the clothes I wear. So atleast I know that she likes my outfit so to speak. But coming from the military, I seemed to have kept the shirt tucked in, belt and matching shoes thing going. lol

 

Over all, for me...I feel that as I get older, I look way better than my younger counter parts. I don't feel I am "letting myself go" at all.

[Eternal Sunshine]

Unfortunately many men give up on their apperance even earlier than that. I would say at around 40. They start sporting a large gut, terrible clothes, baldness and/or gray hair. They also tend to tuck in a t-shirt and belt the jeans just below the gut so it all hangs out. They easily look 10-20 years older.

[SammySammy]

I'm not so sure about this...At 40, I was training for a taekwondo championship. At 41, I had worked at a cattle ranch. 42 got my advanced diver cert. and love spearfishing. I have continually trained and worked out to keep my health up, maybe even more as of late...

 

As for appearance, I am clean shaven, (Wet shaving is one of my hobbies) and I get a haircut regularly. My wife does pick a lot of the clothes I wear. So atleast I know that she likes my outfit so to speak. But coming from the military, I seemed to have kept the shirt tucked in, belt and matching shoes thing going. lol

 

Over all, for me...I feel that as I get older, I look way better than my younger counter parts. I don't feel I am "letting myself go" at all.

 

You're an exception.

 

I went to a small high school. There were only about 150 people in my graduating class. Nearly evenly split between girls and boys. Our class has a Facebook group and almost everyone from the class is in the group. It's a great way to stay in touch with each other, arrange meetings, reunions, and so forth. We just had our 30th-year reunion, so all of us are late 40s about to turn 50.

 

In the group, there are five people who very fit. Look as good or better than they did in high school. Five. Out of 150. Three women. Two guys - me and another guy. The three women who are fit are vain and superficial. Work hard on their looks. I may be vain and superficial too. The other guy was fat in high school and seems to have lost weight for health reasons. He's not particularly muscular or anything. Just a normal size when he used to be very large. One thing I've noticed about the five of us (based on what we post) is our habits are very similar. Eat a clean diet. Exercise religiously.

 

The rest of our class? Various degrees of being overweight. From slightly overweight to very overweight. The jocks are fat. The cheerleaders are fat. The beauty queens are fat. The guy who is now a police officer is fat. The gay guy is fat. You know it's bad when the gay guy is fat, but he is. It's shocking to see almost all of my classmates have let themselves go. Many of the ones who are overweight seem to point it out every time we get together. But, they don't do anything about it. They just stay the way they are.

 

We grew up in the Deep South. Close to New Orleans. It's part of the culture down there. Many say it's because the food is good and life is easy.

 

We're at the age where our kids are in college. Young adults. Our parents are aging and dying. I wonder what the future holds for us. How will our respective attitudes toward weight affect us? Will it matter one way or another?

[No_Go]

It is interesting, but very much depends on what a person identifies as 'taking care of themselves'. I can't imagine how the efforts will be comparable for men and women because the expectations are different. E.g. grey hair appears in both sexes but men are generally considered looking good with salt and pepper hair, and women are not. Therefore women dye their hair and men 'let go' in that respect.

 

On exceptions: i think people that used to spend a lot of time on their appearance in their youth keep it up until very old age. One of my best friends is in her late 70s and very much up to date with fashion, make up etc (ha, maybe that helped her to have and keep for decades a partner nearly 30 years younger than her). Another friend: mid 60s and playing extreme sports weekly. Not all people give up

 

Interesting. I do believe this is fairly accurate in that men give up early on their looks. Unfortunately it's the old, "well now that I've found a woman, married her and have regular sex, I can let myself fall completely apart."

 

My own observations would be that women give up before 59. As with all studies, these are generalizations of the population and there are always exceptions.

 

Thoughts?

 

Men give up on their appearance at the age of 46 - while women work on their looks for a further decade | Daily Mail Online

[darkmoon]

I'm nearly 65 and I still like a bit of make-up, and fitness

 

I get some funny looks from some younger women if I don't, pity or horror, lol

[Chilli]

Ahh, l don't believe that.

 

You watch married couples on any shop mall usually one or the other obviously gave up a longggg time ago.

and l often think it's women that slip into the no need too look good anymore from what l constantly notice, mine did too.

lt probably depends on where you look and live too.

Being male l notice women more so l dunno but the older men usually seem to have much better bodies than the wives and often at least still have their basic shape , it ain't as good as it use to be but the shapes still there.

 

But who really knows l guess

Edited January 20, 2018 by Chilli