Women Age Worse Than Men But Proper Nutrition Can Rewind Time
The Vital Role Nutrition Plays in a Woman's Life
Wouldn’t it be nice to turn back the clock? Americans have got major beef with aging and it isn’t just vanity: this natural human process means you’ve got less time left on planet Earth. That said, the stigmatization of growing older manifests in one’s physical appearance and women — who already are naturally inclined to be more vain — tend to age visibly… and at a much faster rate.
You’ll Pay a Pretty Penny to Stay Younger, For Longer
Look at any Hollywood starlet or even your run-of-the-mill Instagram influencer and you’ll notice a trend. There’s something eerily smooth about their faces, their cheeks and lips look a bit fuller and even bloated, or their skin appears to be pulled taut in unnatural directions. It just gives uncanny valley vibes.
Alas, the modern woman is charmed into costly and maintenance-heavy beauty standards: Botox injections twice a year between $300-$600 a session, hyaluronic acid lip filler injections once a year at about $500-$1000 a session, “Fox Eye” lifts from $3,000-$4,000, “Ponytail facelifts” from a whopping $20,000-$30,000. I could go on and on with a laundry list of procedures and treatments meant to promote a youthful look
Our Insecurities Lie Deep Beneath the Skin
Let’s not forget one of women’s greatest aging insecurities, one which doesn’t even have jack to do with her face: cellulite. Women stress out around bikini season wondering whether or not their cellulite has gotten worse over the past calendar year. Body positivity movement activists celebrate their cellulite while other gals cover up their bodies in shame. All of these “problems” are inherently related because from a biological perspective, women’s bodies are built differently from men’s and as such, we experience aging in distinct ways.
Why Do Men and Women Age So Differently?
Skin ages because over time, our skin loses elasticity from less collagen and thinning of the dermis, our skin becomes more dull from a loss of luminosity and radiance and decrease in hydration, we see a thickening of the epidermis, and we experience excess pigmentation from environmental causes.
Now, did sirens go off in your mind at the word collagen? Yes, the natural form of that thing you see tubs of in the grocery store is actually anchored around subcutaneous fat cells in your skin. Collagen in the male body is 65% stronger than collagen in the female body, there’s more of it, and men also benefit from physically thicker skin as well. This is why up to 90% of women (skinny ones included!) have visible cellulite, which is actually just our normal, first layer of subcutaneous fat protruding through our thinner, dermis layer. This is also why women lose volume and elasticity in our faces at a much faster rate than men as we age.
We Can Slow Down Aging With a Better Diet
While nonsurgical cosmetic procedures and plastic surgery provide a band-aid solution for skin aging, Americans aren’t making it any easier on themselves. Many of us eat diets depleted of essential nutrients from animal sources and diets which are laden with polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the form of seed oils. Yes, rapeseed, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, grapeseed, soybean, and corn oils could be aging us faster.
While there’s no direct proof that seed oils cause cellulite, the introduction of seed oils into our diets coincides with the societal increase in cellulite. Some reason that this is because seed oils oxidize more easily in our fat cells, increase photosensitivity of our skin, worsen inflammation, and even interfere with key vitamin absorption for optimal skin health. Yet they’re in almost every packaged food and takeaway meal you consume!
Learn To Accept to Age With Grace, Through Natural Anti-Aging Practices
Let me be clear, I don’t believe in shaming anyone who wants to go under-the-knife or test out non-surgical cosmetic procedures to shape their face in whatever way they please. We live in a free country and are blessed to have bodily autonomy, so if someone is intrigued by Botox or a Ponytail facelift then they’re well within their right to get as much work done as they please.
At the same time, the prospect of undergoing anti-aging cosmetic surgeries or treatments while not making crucial lifestyle changes feels a bit Sisyphean to me. You’ll always be chasing after an ideal while simultaneously stunting your own progress through less-than-optimal health choices.
Ancestral knowledge can help fill this gap. Topical creams, serums, and scrubs can only do so much to the epidermis but beauty isn’t just surface level! We also need to be improving our anti-aging techniques from the inside out. When I discovered the endless benefits of bone broth, I knew I had a new beverage BFF. Simmering the bones, marrow, tendons, ligaments, feet, and other wasted parts of animals can create one of the most bioavailable sources of collagen a person can consume. Let’s not forget the gelatin, amino acids, and additional nutrients from magnesium, potassium, glycine, calcium, and more which keep our body structurally sound and maintain a more youthful glow.
We can also close this nutritional gap for aging by eating “nose to tail” and not pooh-poohing the more gelatinous cuts of meat like oxtail, lamb or pork shoulder, beef neck, or chicken feet for example. And what better excuse to enjoy a delicacy like bone marrow than to consider it part of your beauty routine?
All of these “problems” are inherently related because from a biological perspective, women’s bodies are built differently from men’s, and as such, we experience aging in different ways
Once you go down that path, you might feel inclined to go full carnivore (I don’t blame you, meat is magnificent) but you risk becoming vitamin E deficient. As one of the fat-soluble vitamins that actually could detox seed oils from your body by fixing how your body properly absorbs fat, you shouldn’t ignore natural sources of vitamin E like almonds, peanuts, avocados, pumpkin, collard greens, mangos, and other fruits and vegetables rich in the vitamin.
Some people prefer to supplement their vitamin E–as some people also prefer to supplement their collagen with powders–but getting the real things from a vibrant, well-rounded, and ancestrally-minded diet is the way to go if you really want to rejuvenate your ever-aging body.
Andrea Mew is the Storytelling Coordinator at the Independent Women’s Forum and a contributing writer at Evie Magazine.
In all respects of life, Andrea abides by her passions for freedom, femininity, and facts.
You can connect with Andrea on Twitter or Instagram. For more writing by Andrea,
you can read Evie Magazine.
This article was originally published in Issue 09 of the WarKitchen magazine. You can read it in its original form here. If you’re on the newsletter, you’ll be the first to know when the next issue drops: warkitchen.net.
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