Abstract
Subjective age, or how young or old individuals experience themselves to be relative to their chronological age, is a crucial construct in gerontology. Subjective age is a significant predictor of important health outcomes, but little is known about the criteria by which individuals' subjectively evaluate their age. To identify psychosocial and biomedical factors linked to the subjective evaluation of age, this study examined whether perceived age discrimination and markers of biological aging are associated with subjective age. Participants were 4776 adults (M age = 68) from the 2008 and 2010 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who completed measures of subjective age, age discrimination, demographic variables, self-rated health and depression, and had physical health measures, including peak expiratory flow, grip strength, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Telomere length was available for a subset of participants in the 2008 wave (n = 2214). Regression analysis indicated that perceived age discrimination, lower peak expiratory flow, lower grip strength, and higher waist circumference were associated with an older subjective age, controlling for sociodemographic factors, self-rated health, and depression. In contrast, blood pressure and telomere length were not related to subjective age. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that how old a person feels depends in part on psychosocial and biomedical factors, including the experiences of ageism and perceptible indices of fitness and biological age.
Highlights
Subjective age refers to how young or old individuals experience themselves to be, relative to their chronological age
The regression analysis indicated that age discrimination was negatively related to subjective age, controlling for the demographic variables, self-rated health, and depressive symptoms (Table 2)
Individuals exposed to age discrimination felt approximately 2% older than those who did not report such experience (Fig. 1)
Summary
Subjective age refers to how young or old individuals experience themselves to be, relative to their chronological age. A growing body of research indicates that a younger subjective age is associated with a range of positive outcomes in old age, including higher psychological wellbeing [1,2,3], better physical and cognitive functioning [4,5], and longevity [6,7]. These associations persist even when controlling for chronological age, demographic and health-related variables [4,5,6]. We examine whether subjective age is associated with a variety of clinical and laboratory assessments that account for individuals’ physical fitness and health condition
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