Age, stereotypes, and nutritional supplements use among middle age and older women

Abstract

ABSTRACT As aging women take relatively high counts of medications and nutritional supplements, each addition to their supplements roster increases the likelihood of experiencing adverse health outcomes. Given these public health implications, we isolate the effects of chronological age and old age stereotypes in driving up the number of nutritional supplements taken by middle age and older women in the United States. We use multiple models that converge on the finding that middle age women, but not older women, who highly endorse negative old age stereotypes take more supplements than their age peers who fail to highly endorse negative old age stereotypes.