Many years ago, a friend stood on a machine in a hospital and came off it so deliriously happy we had to ignore her for the rest of the day. She said she was 36 in real life, but the body-age machine had detected that she was all of 22. Internally, she had organs that were young (presumably they could endure a night of drinking and dancing and get back to work the next morning not feeling like they’d been dragged through the mud).
If the beauty industry hasn’t got you (if algae-infused-something doesn’t make you squeal in delight), the medical industry will, as will its allies in fitness and fit-food that are jumping on the ‘science-backed’ bandwagon. There’s a whole new stream of medicine that talks about lifestyle and metabolism and is targeted at people like me, who will not believe a ‘miracle’ wrinkle-erasing cream can work, but will take time to examine a supplement promoted to prevent ‘internal ageing’. We will then orgasm with moringa powder.
I’d imagine none of us wants to look like a “tea-towel that got stuck at the back of a tumble dryer”, as Zoe Williams, who writes The Guardian ’s ‘Fit in my 40s’ column, on anti-ageing, says. But do I really care what my insides look like? If I’m in my 20s, hell no. If I’m in my 40s, hell yeah, because doctors tell me all this internal ageing may result in hair fall, and I’d like to hold on to what little hair I have, thank you.
This ‘be beautiful inside’ is a great pitch really, and rather a cunning ploy of doctors (and pharma companies, and companies that sell moringa powder). They probably realised beauty was such a huge business, that to talk to people in those terms could only benefit their bottom-lines, turning something that could end up being very medical-sounding into something everyone could understand.
There’s of course all kinds of internal-age-related problems, like the wearing away of cartilage or the digestive system becoming less robust, for instance. So who has really benefited from internal ageing becoming a part of the layperson’s lexicon then, besides 25-year-old doctors who practise lifestyle medicine?
Yoga studios, gyms, supplement-selling companies, health-food places. Hello anti-inflammatory foods (turmeric in capsules) and gut-promoting probiotics (k ombucha for ₹350 a pop). They cite science and sell the concept, rather than the product. There’s nothing wrong with kombucha ; I’m sure it does have wonderfully friendly bacteria, but do I need it? The truth is, I buy into these products because secretly I hope they are elixirs that will make me young again — internally. There’s nothing worse than taking a pill (or buying a pill box) to remind you of your age.
Companies have understood that the fear of ageing doesn’t stop with the odd wrinkle. But as consumers, we too are beginning to understand that beauty really is skin deep, especially when it resides in a glass bottle, even one of almond milk.
