Dear Editors:
With global aging, enhancing older adults' well‐being is an important challenge. As life expectancy increases, people are desirous of maintaining a youthful appearance and physical health. 1 Even in old age, they are mindful of their appearance and have fun with beauty and fashion. Pursuing an appropriate appearance, body self‐image satisfaction, and beauty may be one necessary part for achieving well‐being. Previous research has shown that older adults' body image affects their well‐being. 2 Proper cosmetic intervention can improve psychological health in patients with cancer, 3 and beauty care programs have enhanced subjective health among older adults. 4 Approaches to beauty in older adults may contribute to their well‐being, but evidence regarding this remains insufficient. Additionally, little is known about whether positive awareness of and attitudes toward beauty are associated with their well‐being. This study reported the cross‐sectional association of attitudes toward beauty and personal grooming with subjective well‐being among older women.
We recruited community‐dwelling individuals from public facility visitors, such as community centers, in Aichi, Japan, in July–August 2022; 648 individuals (women: 488 [75.3%]) who participated voluntarily completed self‐administered questionnaires, with responses collected by mail (response rate: 64.8%). Among them, we excluded those aged less than 65 years; we also omitted male participants because of their small samples. Finally, 338 older women without any missing information on the variables used in this study were included (mean age [standard deviation] = 75.1 [5.5] years; Appendix 1 shows the participant characteristics). Subjective well‐being was assessed using the five‐item World Health Organization Well‐Being Index (WHO‐5), measuring positive mental health status in the past 2 weeks (0–25 points; higher scores indicate greater well‐being).5, 6 Five aspects of attitudes toward beauty and personal grooming were evaluated based on a previous survey 7 : (1) careful grooming regardless of age, (2) careful grooming when meeting others, (3) careful grooming when going out, (4) finding beauty and grooming enjoyable, and (5) trying new beauty and fashion. The responses on each item were divided into “yes” (“agree” or “somewhat agree”) and “no” (“disagree” or “somewhat disagree”). We conducted a multivariable linear regression analysis on the association of attitudes toward beauty and personal grooming with subjective well‐being, adjusted for age, marital status, education, economic status, employment, illness, self‐rated health, and functional status. We checked that the analysis had no major violations of the assumptions (linearity, normality, and homoscedasticity) for residuals derived from the linear regression analysis. Statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. All statistical analyses were conducted using R Version 4.2.2 for Windows (R Foundation for Statistical Computing). This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology (No. 1588) and Aichi Toho University (No. 202118).
Table 1 shows the association of the items of attitudes toward beauty and personal grooming with the WHO‐5 scores. Among the participants, 86.4% were careful in grooming regardless of age, 76.3% were careful when meeting others, 62.4% were careful when going out, 41.7% found beauty and grooming enjoyable, and 18.9% tried new beauty and fashion. Multivariable analysis revealed that older women finding beauty and grooming enjoyable showed a significantly higher level of WHO‐5 score than those who did not (unstandardized regression coefficient [β], 1.68; 95% confidence interval, 0.47–2.88; P = 0.007). No significant associations between other items and WHO‐5 scores were found.
Table 1.
Association of attitudes toward beauty and personal grooming with subjective well‐being, based on multivariable linear regression analysis (n = 338)
| n (%) | WHO‐5 score | Crude model | Adjusted model † | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | SD | β (95% CI) | P‐value | β (95% CI) | P‐value | |||
| Attitudes toward beauty and personal grooming | ||||||||
| Careful grooming regardless of age | No | 46 (13.6) | 14.5 | 5.4 | Reference | Reference | ||
| Yes | 292 (86.4) | 15.6 | 4.9 | 0.39 (−1.35, 2.13) | 0.657 | 0.06 (−1.63, 1.75) | 0.948 | |
| Careful grooming when meeting others | No | 80 (23.7) | 14.6 | 5.4 | Reference | Reference | ||
| Yes | 258 (76.3) | 15.7 | 4.8 | −0.46 (−2.21, 1.30) | 0.611 | −0.12 (−1.84, 1.60) | 0.891 | |
| Careful grooming when going out | No | 127 (37.6) | 14.5 | 5.1 | Reference | Reference | ||
| Yes | 211 (62.4) | 16.0 | 4.8 | 1.05 (−0.40, 2.51) | 0.157 | 0.31 (−1.13, 1.75) | 0.671 | |
| Finding beauty and grooming enjoyable | No | 197 (58.3) | 14.6 | 4.7 | Reference | Reference | ||
| Yes | 141 (41.7) | 16.6 | 5.0 | 2.02 (0.78, 3.26) | 0.002 | 1.68 (0.47, 2.88) | 0.007 | |
| Trying new beauty and fashion | No | 274 (80.1) | 15.3 | 5.0 | Reference | Reference | ||
| Yes | 64 (18.9) | 16.0 | 4.6 | −0.81 (−2.32, 0.70) | 0.294 | −0.99 (−2.47, 0.49) | 0.191 | |
Note: R‐squared and adjusted R‐squared were 0.05 and 0.04 for the crude model and 0.18 and 0.13 for the adjusted model. F‐statistics were 3.49 (P = 0.004) for the crude model and 3.85 (P < 0.001) for the adjusted model.
Abbreviations: β, unstandardized regression coefficient; CI, confidence interval; SD, standard deviation; WHO‐5, the five‐item World Health Organization Well‐Being Index.
Adjusted for age, marital status, education, economic status, employment, illness, self‐rated health, and functional status.
The “Decade of Healthy Ageing” of the United Nations emphasizes combating ageism, 8 “the systematic practice of putting older people in one mold and discriminating against them because they are older.” 9 Prejudice against oneself, such as restricting one's life and activities to suit them, also indicates ageism. Restricting beauty and fashion in older adults can be ageism because anyone can have fun and try fashion and beauty regardless of age. Our findings suggest that these positive attitudes may contribute to older adults' subjective well‐being. Promoting a positive image of caring for beauty, grooming, and fashion, even in old age, could help dispel ageism and increase their well‐being.
Despite these findings, the cross‐sectional study design could not determine causality. Additionally, our assessment items for attitudes toward beauty and grooming did not undergo effective validation. This study did not examine men due to the small samples. Finally, the generalizability of the results is limited because the participants were voluntarily recruited from community‐dwelling people in some areas of Japan. In conclusion, this study found that older women with awareness of and attitudes toward enjoying beauty and personal grooming had higher levels of subjective well‐being. Further research is needed to examine these causality and intervention approaches.
Author contributions
TN and ES conceptualized and designed the study, participated in data collection, analyzed the data, and drafted and revised the manuscript. All authors approved the submission of the final manuscript.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Supporting information
Appendix 1. Characteristics of the participants
Acknowledgements
We wish to express our sincere gratitude to Rieko Kato and the staff of Ai‐Ai Mind, Inc. for their contributions to this study. We also thank all participants and corporators of this study. This study was supported by a research grant from the Japanese Council of Senior Citizens Welfare Service. The Japan Society supported this study for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (Grant Numbers 21K17322, 22J01409, and 22KJ3208). The funding sources played no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, or decision to publish or prepare the manuscript.
Noguchi T, Shang E. Association of positive attitudes toward beauty and personal grooming with subjective well‐being among older women. Geriatr. Gerontol. Int. 2024;24:399–400. 10.1111/ggi.14668
Data availability statement
Data supporting the findings of this study are available upon request from the corresponding authors. The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions.
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Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Supplementary Materials
Appendix 1. Characteristics of the participants
Data Availability Statement
Data supporting the findings of this study are available upon request from the corresponding authors. The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions.