For the past week I was in Minnesota visiting my mom’s side of the family. Since I grew up in Hawaii and have been living in California and Nevada for the past 15 years, I rarely see my relatives, so it was good to see everyone again. Now that I have my skin care blog and think about anti-aging constantly, I started looking around at all of my relatives to see if I could come up with any clues about how I will age, and what I can do to age well.

Wrinkles
I noticed my mom has way more wrinkles and sun damage than all of her brothers and sisters. While wrinkles are a natural part of aging and are exacerbated by all sorts of things - medication, Diabetes, eating poorly, smoking, etc., my mom still has an extreme amount of wrinkles compared to everyone else. I have to conclude that the sun is probably a huge factor in why my mom’s skin didn’t age well. Even though my mom didn’t move to Hawaii until her late 20s, I still think years of living in a climate with an extreme UV Index really took a toll on her skin. She also never actively went out in the sun since she doesn’t like the beach, but she’s never worn sunscreen on a regular basis. So that’s why I think it’s so important to wear a good sunscreen every day, even if you aren’t in the sun for more than a few minutes. The cumulative damage of the sun will really do a number on your skin, especially if you are a fair-skinned Caucasian!

My family on my dad’s side has also aged well as far as wrinkles go, and they live in a climate without a high UV Index as well! Hmmm. My dad also has a ton of sun damage and a fair amount of wrinkles, and he spent years as a lifeguard, and he never wore sunscreen in Hawaii, even when he spent hours outside. So if you live in a climate that doesn’t have a high UV Index, chances are you will already be a step ahead of me and everyone else living in the hot sun! The only bad thing about cooler climates is that it’s hard to produce enough Vitamin D.

Hair Loss
Hair loss can genetically come from either your mom or dad’s side of the family, and I can’t say I lucked out with the hair gene:( I’m working on doing everything I can to prevent hair loss, as well as finding a way to restore hair, and I will write about that soon.

Weight
I know I will get a lot of angry comments about this, but I think weight is partially genetic, but it also depends a lot on the individual’s eating and exercising habits. Most of my family is overweight, and they are afflicted with a lot of (sometimes) preventable diseases like Type 2 Diabetes. Although I don’t have the best eating habits, and never exercise as much as I need to, I have been making a real effort to attempt to be healthy for the last 10 years or so. I still have a long ways to go, but I have tried to educate myself about how to live healthy, and I know that I am also lucky that I don’t have a problem with emotional eating.

Despite the bad genes (and good genes), my goal is to try to be as proactive as I can about aging so that I can look and feel as good as possible as I get older!