# Different generations, different physical appearances? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621 "2015-04-02T14:45:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/21 "2015-04-03T10:23:12Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > Were there still bikes and Mao suits to be seen in 2006? Bikes, cars, buses, tractors, things that had been made at home - sort of an engine and wheels put onto a home-made metal chassis, motorbikes, more buses and just **thousands of people** , everywhere. I think there were 12 million Chinese and 2,000 foreigners (laowai), so just spotting another ‘big nose’ was a noteworthy event. I wouldn’t know what a Mao suit looked like… oh, just looked it up; none that I remember. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/22 "2015-04-03T10:39:38Z")
[http://www.newageman.co.uk/14-time-travelling-celebrities](http://www.newageman.co.uk/14-time-travelling-celebrities) It’s not that hard to find people from the past who look pretty damn similar to contemporary people. ---
**Author:** ![get\_lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@get\_lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/get_lives)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/23 "2015-04-03T14:20:02Z")
> [@grude](#): > > My parents took a pic of me in the zoo around 85’. > > :eek:Men’s fashions, wow! You’d think it was a gay pride parade, skinny sleeveless tees, short shorts worn tight! I can’t imagine anyone being willing to out in essentially a speedo. I used to laugh at my dad’s knee-length “Bermuda shorts” when I was a kid. Now that’s the exact style. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/24 "2015-04-03T18:45:32Z")
I find [this photo](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00417/TMM01ASTRONAUT2_a_417440b.jpg) of the wives of the Mercury Project astronauts quite striking. The astronauts were then aged 32-38, so presumably their wives were about that age as well. It’s amazing how unlike 30-something women of today they look. ---
**Author:** ![Lee\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/aeb1de/32.png) [@Lee\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lee_Q)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/25 "2015-04-03T22:10:53Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > I think roughness of life and diet can have an affect as well. > > It seems like whenever I see really old photographs (1910s and before) the middle aged women look a bit rough/homely (sure, there are always exceptions). > > One example is the famous afghan girl from the national geographic cover. She was [re-photographed](http://s.ngm.com/afghan-girl/images/afghan-girl.jpg)at 30 and she definitely looks rougher than a typical upper class young professional woman at 30. She had a pretty hard life. I thought the same thing when I first saw that photo of the Afghan woman from that iconic photograph. Extreme poverty and hardship definitely can have a profound effect on physical appearance. Many of the iconic photos of Dorothea Lange, taken around the time of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, attest to this. One of the most famous pictures called “migrant mother” shows a woman many people would probably think is in her 40s. She was actually 32. [Here is the picture](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/26/dorothea-lange-birthday-migrant-mother-photographer-118_n_3333741.html). In America, you see the physical manifestations of extreme poverty also in photographs or video of the Appalachian region, even today. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/26 "2015-04-03T22:56:01Z")
> [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](#): > > I find [this photo](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00417/TMM01ASTRONAUT2_a_417440b.jpg) of the wives of the Mercury Project astronauts quite striking. The astronauts were then aged 32-38, so presumably their wives were about that age as well. It’s amazing how unlike 30-something women of today they look. They make today’s 30-somethings seem like teenagers! ---
**Author:** ![get\_lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@get\_lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/get_lives)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/27 "2015-04-03T23:50:07Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > They make today’s 30-somethings seem like teenagers! Probably mostly heavy smokers and/or always around secondhand smoke. Also they probably were eating terrible diets in terms of food being overcooked and highly processed. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/28 "2015-04-04T03:30:52Z")
> [@get\_lives](#): > > Also they probably were eating terrible diets in terms of food being overcooked and highly processed. No, I’d think that would be more common now, when most wives work outside the home. Back then, most of these wives were ‘housewives’ and stayed home to prepare meals mostly from scratch, rather than depend on takeout/frozen dinners/microwave meals/hamberger helper. That’s the stuff that’s overcooked/over-processed. When I was a kid, we had macaroni & cheese, tune cassarole, etc. quite often, but mom prepared all of that from scratch. ---
**Author:** ![JKilez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e5b9ba/32.png) [@JKilez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKilez)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2015, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/29 "2015-04-04T03:50:40Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Also, the photographic technology used may itself “age” the photo for you, either consciously or unconsciously. You can even do this intentionally - when was [this](http://tinyforestgirl.deviantart.com/art/forest-book-310402510) photo taken? The color saturation seems to imply a different time - maybe late 1930’s/early 1940’s when color photography was still pretty new? Sadly, it is done intentionally so often that I would instinctively assume that such a photo was made in the 21st century. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2015, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621/30 "2015-04-04T03:52:12Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > They make today’s 30-somethings seem like teenagers! I think a large part of that is just the impression given by their Granny’s-permanent-wave hairstyles. Nowadays we’re used to seeing that sort of hair on elderly women, so it looks very aging. Cut a hole in a piece of paper and use it to look at each woman’s face while blocking out her hair, and you’ll be surprised how much younger she looks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-generations-different-physical-appearances/716621.md?page=1)