Let's FACE it

Women and weightscales have never been the best of friends. But that may change soon even if she's tilted favourably on the heavier side.

A new study shows that being thin ages women's faces faster, especially if they happen to be over 35. The study, the first of its kind to be published in the April issue of the Plastic and Reconstructive Journal, focused on a variety of factors that can make people look older.

It says a thin face is the lead culprit because being slender causes a loss of volume in the face. "This loss of volume creates jowls and makes wrinkles develop," says study author Dr. Bahman Guyuron. "The older we get, the more the face gets depleted. When you lose weight, this look is enhanced and ageing is accelerated."

For women who often go over the top taking extreme steps to lose flab and end up adding years to their faces, the news couldn't have come in a better time.

Surishtha Mitra, who spends hours in the gym trying to get rid of the flab she has accumulated over the past four years and two childbirths, says, "Since I was always a slim person, even an inch of extra flab seems a bit too much for me. I have managed to shed most of the post- pregnancy weight but I still keep trying very hard to get back to how I was before."

She says she can feel the change on her body but her face has also shrunk, which has suddenly made her look older. With multi-tasking, lifestyle issues and innumerable advertisements telling us of various ways to lose weight, the right formula to stay slim and also have a younger- looking face may just elude us.

But to keep that right balance is important. Otherwise you end up working hard but not looking as good as you expect to.

Actress Raveena Tandon who has lost all the flab after two childbirths, but is glowing these days, says, "I think you lose colour when you go for extreme diets or over-exercise. After an age, taking care of your skin, facial skin especially, becomes as important as knowing how to shed extra flab." She does it by eating right and exercising only to the extent that her body requires.

"That's the important part - to know how to moderate between exercising and eating right depending on your body type." With too many things to do and little time left to herself, it can be a little difficult for women outside the glamour world to regulate eating habits and exercising all at the same time.

But nutritionist Shikha Chawla says women do not have to go out of the way to inculcate such habits. "All you have to do is choose the right food. Eat more vegetables, stews, fruits, soups and cut down on the carbs. You can also take a papaya and use it as a face mask on a weekly basis, maybe on a Sunday. That doesn't take too much time or require any woman to do something outside her regular routine."

With added responsibilities, stress, personal and professional issues to think about, it's mandatory that there's thought put into the health aspect. It isn't a lifestyle choice anymore, rather a need that cannot be overlooked in today's world.

Actress and television anchor Mandira Bedi says, "While it's good to be healthy and fit, an obsession with health has led to people going over the top. Starvation has become one of the ways people lose weight, and that's when your face ages faster. Extreme or crash diets are very harmful, and you always gain the weight that you lose that way." She advises a gradual and slow but steady way to go about it.

You know how things are changing, and how conscious women are becoming about their looks from a younger age when someone as young as Katrina Kaif endorses an anti-ageing soap. A couple of years ago it would have been considered an insult to an actress in her 20s to promote something that's suited more for women in their 30s.

But age is catching up on all of us in more ways than one. And you cannot completely reverse its effects when it's too late. Dr Chawla says, "Though 30 is no age for a woman anymore. It's when life begins. But women are becoming conscious of their skin from a far early age today."

Dr Rashmi Shetty, cosmetic physician, who was in the city to talk to women about skin- based problems at the the Britannia Good Housekeeping Show 2010, advises, "Skin care products with retinol is a must- have for minimising effects of ageing.But nothing can ever beat a healthy lifestyle. Face up to the problem before it's too late, ladies.