Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Anti-Aging Movement

Contemporary Cultures and the Social Construction of Old Age

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Ethics, Health Policy and (Anti-) Aging: Mixed Blessings

Part of the book series: Ethics and Health Policy ((EHP,volume 1))

Abstract

This chapter seeks to characterise the Anti-aging movement and indicate the role it plays in the contested nature of old age. I approach the topic from a cultural anthropological and critical gerontological perspective. My interest has been to investigate how old age is constructed across diverse cultures. The purpose of looking at the Anti-aging movement was to explore the contemporary western idea of old age by examining the contested cultural meanings of ‘old age’ manifest in their antipathy. The research on which this chapter is written in ethnographic is style and based on systematic observation of scientific and other anti-aging conferences, reading and analysis of journals, text-books, websites and other materials produced by a broadly defined Anti-aging movement . The original research is presented in previous publications; the intention here is to summarise that work and suggest some policy implications (Vincent 2003a, b, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    “The research, which was carried out for the Dying Matters Coalition by Comres, reveals that although most people are scared of dying, quality of life is viewed as more important than how long we live for… Comres interviewed 2,028 British adults online between 28 April and 1 May 2011. Data were weighted to be representative demographically of all British adults.” Survey published 16 May 2011 on http://www.comres.co.uk/dyingmatters

    surveymay11.aspx.

References

  • Ackerman, F.N. 2007. Death is a punch in the jaw: Life extension and its discontents. In The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics, ed. B. Steinbock 324–348. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amoss, P.T., and S. Harrell. 1981. Other ways of growing old: anthropological perspectives. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Badie, B. 1990. Community, individualism and culture. In Individualism: theories and methods, eds. P. Birnbaum and J. Leca. 95–115. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, B. 1985. About science. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, B., D. Bloor, and Henry, J. 1996. Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis. London: Athlone.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benecke, M. 2002. The Dream of eternal life: Biomedicine, aging, and immortality (trans. R. Rubenstein). New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boia, L. 2004. Forever young: A cultural history of longevity. London: Reaktion Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bostrom, N. 2008. Why I want to be a posthuman when I grow up. In Medical enhancement and posthumanity, eds. B. Gordijn and R. Chadwick 107–137.http://www.nickbostrom.com/posthuman.pdf.

  • Bradley, H. 1996. Fractured identities: Changing patterns of inequality. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bramstedt, K.A. 2001. Scientific breakthroughs: Cause or cure of the aging ‘Problem’. Gerontology 47(1):52–54.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Carey, J. 2003. Longevity: The biology and demography of lifespan. Princeton: Princeton University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Cole, T.R. 1992. The journey of life: A cultural history of aging in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooke, G. 2008. Effacing the face: Botox and the anarchivic archive. Body and Society 14(2):23–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cumming, E., and W.E. Henry. 1961. Growing old: The process of disengagement. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daatland, S.O., and S. Biggs. eds. 2005. Aging and diversity: Multiple pathways and cultural migrations. Bristol: The Policy Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dumas, A., and B.S. Turner. 2007. The life-extension project: A sociological critique. Health Sociology Review 16(1):5–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dumas, A., S. Laberge, and S.M. Straka. 2005. Older women’s relations to bodily appearance: The embodiment of social and biological conditions of existence. Aging & Society 25(6):883–902.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dumont, L. 1985. Essays on individualism: Modern ideology in anthropological perspective. London: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dupré, J. 1993. The disorder of things: Metaphysical foundations of the disunity of science. London: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elias, N. 1985. The loneliness of the dying. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Estes, C.L., and E. Binney. 1989. The biomedicalisation of aging: Dangers and dilemmas. Gerontologist 29(5):587−596

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Estes, C. L., S. Biggs, and C. Phillipson. 2003. Social theory, social policy and old age. Buckingham: Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franklin, S., and M. Lock. 2003. Remaking life and death. Oxford: James Currey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fukuyama, F. 2002. Our posthuman future: Consequences of the biotechnology revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gagnier, R. 2010. Individualism, decadence and globalization: On the relationship of part to whole, 1859–1920. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and self-identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gieryn, T.F. 1999. Cultural boundaries of science: Credibility on the line. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilleard, C., and P. Higgs. 2000. Cultures of aging. Harlow: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gimlin, D. 2002. Body work: Beauty and self image in American culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glaser, V. 2009. Interview with John Vincent. Rejuvenation Research 12(1):59–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gott, M., and C. Ingleton. 2011. Living with aging and dying: Palliative and end of life care for older people. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. 1987. The theory of communicative action. Vol.2, lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. 2003. The future of human nature. Oxford: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, S.S. 2003. Merchants of immortality: Chasing the dream of human life extension. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallam, E., J. Hockey, and G. Howarth. 1999. Beyond the body: Death and social identity. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, E.R., and L.D. Holmes. 1995. Other cultures, elder years. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurd Clarke, L. 2011. Facing age: Women growing older in anti-aging culture. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isin, E.F., and P.K. Wood. 1999. Citizenship and identity. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, P., and P. Thane. eds. 1998. Old age from antiquity to post-modernity. Routledge: London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, I.R., and P.F. Higgs. 2010. The natural, the normal and the normative: Contested terrains in aging and old age. Social Science & Medicine 71(8):1513–1519.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, S. 1996. Disciplining old age: The formation of gerontological knowledge. London: University Press of Virginia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keith, J. 1994. The aging experience: Diversity and commonality across cultures. Sage Publications: London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenyon, G.M., J.E. Birren, and J.J.F. Schroots. eds. 1991. Metaphors of aging in science and the humanities. Springer: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirkwood, T. 1999. Time of our lives: The science of human aging. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lafontaine, C. 2008. La Société Post-Mortelle. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laslett, P. 1989. A fresh map of life: The emergence of the third age London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, E. 2011. What do we know about the congruence between what older people prioritize at the end of life and policy and practices? In Living with aging and dying, eds. M. Gott, and C. Ingleton. 63–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lock, M., and J. Farquhar. eds. 2007. Beyond the body proper: Reading the anthropology of material life. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lukes, S. 1973. Individualism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macfarlane, A. 1978. The origins of English individualism: The family, property and social transition. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macnicol, J. 2006. Age discrimination: An historical and contemporary analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mannheim, K. 1952. Essays on the sociology of knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Minois, G. 1989. History of old age. Polity Press: Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mishra, R. 1999. Globalization and the welfare state. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moreira, T., and Palladino, P. 2008. Squaring the curve: The anatomo-politics of aging, life and death. Body and society 14(3):21–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mykytyn, C.E. 2006a. Anti-aging medicine: A patient/practioner movement to redefine aging. Social Science and Medicine 62(3):643−653.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mykytyn, C.E. 2006b. Anti-aging medicine: Predictions, moral obligations, and biomedical intervention. Anthropological Quarterly 79(1):5−31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nishimura E.K., S.R. Granter, and D.E. Fisher. 2005. Mechanisms of hair graying: Incomplete melanocyte stem cell maintenance in the niche. Science 307(5710):720–4.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Oberg, P. 2003. Images versus experience of the aging body. In Aging bodies: Images and everyday experience, ed. C. A. Fairclough 78–102. Oxford: AltaMira.

    Google Scholar 

  • Overall, C. 2003. Aging, death, and human longevity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palgi, P. 1984. Death: A cross-cultural perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 13(1):385–417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phillipson, C. 1998. Reconstructing old age: New agendas in social theory and practice. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Post, S.G., and R.H. Binstock. 2004. The fountain of youth : Cultural, scientific, and ethical perspectives on a biomedical goal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Powell, J. 2010. The aging body: From bio-medical fatalism to understanding gender and biographical sensitivity. In Culture, bodies and the sociology of health, ed. E. Ettorre. Chap. 6. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N. 2001. The politics of life itself. Theory, culture & society 18(6):1–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N. 2007. Politics of life itself: Biomedicine, power and subjectivity in the twenty-first century. Oxford: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, S. 1997. Lifeline: Biology, freedom, determinism. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spindler, M. 2008. Surrogate religion, spiritual materialism or protestant ethic? Three accounts of the function of religiosity in anti-aging. Journal of Aging Studies 22(4):322–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thane, P. 2000. Old age in english history: Past experiences, present issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ting, P. T., and A. Freiman. 2004. The story of Clostridium botulinum: From food poisoning to Botox. Clinical Medicine 4(3):258–261.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Touraine, A. 1971. Post-industrial society. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Triolo, F., and B. Gridelli. 2006. End-stage organ failure: Will regenerative medicine keep its promise? Cell Transplantation 15(Supplement 1):S3–S10. http://cfweb.ismett.edu/documenti/pubblicazioni/CellTx_Vol15-S1_2006/CellTx_Vol15-S1_s03–10.pdf.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tulle, E. 2008. Aging, the body and social change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Turner, B.S. 2007. Culture, technologies and bodies: The technological Utopia of living forever. In Embodying sociology: Retrospect, progress and prospects, ed. C. Shilling 19−36. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Twigg, J. 2000. Care work as a form of bodywork. Aging and Society 20(4):389–412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Twigg, J. 2004. The body, gender, and age: Feminist insights in social gerontology. Journal of Aging Studies 18(1):59–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A. 2003a. Old age. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A. 2003b. What is at stake in the ‘war on anti-aging medicine’? Aging & Society 23(4):675–684.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A. 2006a. Anti-aging science and the future of old age. In Futures of old age, eds. J. Vincent, C. Phillipson, and M. Downs. eds. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A. 2006b. Aging contested: Anti-aging science and the cultural construction of old age. Sociology 40(4):681–698.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A. 2007. Science and imagery in the ‘war on old age’. Aging and Society 27(6):1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A. 2008. The cultural construction old age as a biological phenomenon: Science and anti-aging technologies. Journal of Aging Studies 22(4):331–339.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A. 2009. Aging, anti-aging and anti-anti-aging; who are the progressives in the debate on human biological aging. Medicine Studies 1(3):197–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A. 2011. Anti-aging and scientific avoidance of death. In Living with aging and dying: Palliative and end of life care for older people, eds. M. Gott, and C. Ingleton. 29–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, J.A., E. Tulle, and J. Bond. 2008. The anti-aging enterprise: Science, knowledge, expertise, rhetoric and values. Special edition of The Journal of Aging Studies 22(4):291–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weeks, J. 1994. The lesser evil and the greater good: The theory and politics of social diversity. London: Rivers Oram Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4RJ, Devon, UK

    John Vincent

Authors
  1. John Vincent
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Vincent .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Room AE 340, Rotterdam, 3000 CA, Netherlands

    Maartje Schermer

  2. , Medical Ethics and Philsophy, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, 's-Gravendijkwal 230, Rotterdam, 3015 CE, Netherlands

    Wim Pinxten

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Vincent, J. (2013). The Anti-Aging Movement. In: Schermer, M., Pinxten, W. (eds) Ethics, Health Policy and (Anti-) Aging: Mixed Blessings. Ethics and Health Policy, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3870-6_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3870-6_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-3869-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-3870-6

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation