Why Self Image Suffers Among Seniors

Reference:
Lee Dye (2010, April 7). Why Self Image Suffers Among Seniors
Retrieved April 16, 2010, from
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/image-suffers seniors/story?id=10301708&page

Summary:
A new broad study illustrates that self-esteem changing always with the human lifespan. It surveys the number of 3,617 Americans over a 16-year period from 1986 to 2002, and that survey involves all of the factors that can affect our health and our financial prosperity by testing the effects of gender, ethnic, education, income, employment status, social support and so on. Many of factors can affect self-esteem, but only income and heath are able to explain the decrease of people in old age. The new study also found several factors such as women always had lower self-esteem than man before they are 80 years old, self-esteem of white as similar as black before they are 60 years old except when they at age 25 , and education is important in maintaining self-self. These factors lead to self-esteem line shown as a trajectory. If someone has higher self-esteem, he would have a better body, less criminal behavior, lower levels of depression and more success than other people with lower self-esteem. Although many factors related to self-esteem, only health and poor income play a major role in old age.

Reaction:
Self-esteem is your opinion about yourself, it refers to individual value. People who have good opinions about themselves that means they have a high self-esteem. Elder people would transfer the focus of life from work to families after they retirement, they maybe feel a little depression because they cannot show their own value any more in the society .This situation always take a few negative effects and hurt the elder self-esteem.
Meanwhile, love, health and income become more important thing than the others for elder. Love can reduce elders’ formless mentality and make them feel they are also important in status of their families. Health can keep elder have a good mood and enough abilities and confidence to do something that they like, and income can make elder feel they are still independence instead of depend on their children, so they will give themselves a good opinion.

Vocabulary:
Self-esteem：respect for yourself
Trajectory：the curved path an object follows after it is thrown or shot into the air
Maintain：to continue to have; kept in existence, or not allow becoming less
Longitude ：the position to the east or west of an imaginary circle around the earth that goes through the North Pole, the South Pole, and Greenwich, England
Mastery：complete control
Diminish：to reduce or be reduced in size or importance
Legacy：A legacy is also money or property left to a person by
Retirement：the point at which someone stops working
Vulnerable：able to be easily hurt, influenced, or attacked