Dermatologist Shereene Idriss argues that maintaining healthy skin is treated as vanity while similar efforts to preserve other organs, like preventing heart disease or building muscle, are celebrated as legitimate health goals. Skin is the body's largest organ, yet people who care for it face moral judgment that cardiologists and trainers never do.
Chapters
Have you noticed that preserving your knees is considered responsible, but preserving your skin as you get older and wiser is considered an insecurity? So in medicine, I'm a dermatologist, we spend our entire careers helping people preserve the youthfulness of their bodies. By definition, we are lowering your cholesterol because arteries age. We lift weights because muscles age. We treat osteoporosis because your bones are also aging. And we promote wearing sunscreen because your skin is aging as well. Your skin is the largest organ within your body. But no one accuses a cardiologist of promoting ageism for preventing heart disease. No one says strength training is an insult to older adults because it preserves muscle mass. We celebrate people who maintain their mobility, their cognition, their health for as long as humanly possible. And society applauds you for protecting your heart, your bones, your brain, but The second you want to protect your skin or invest in your skin or help to maintain in the longevity of your skin, you're attacked. Why is skin different? Why is wanting youthful-looking skin considered morally bankrupt, suspect, and you wanting youthful-looking bones or muscles or youthful cognition considered responsible? I think it is fascinating, and this is something that we need to be diving more into.
