Older Adult Interview Paper

As a part of my Human Development coursework, I have conducted an interview with an older age woman. Through this interview I have gained quite a bit of information regarding the pros and cons of the older adult stage of human development. In this paper, I hope to further analyze the data that I have collected, so I can further assess what the older adult stage of development entails regarding one’s concept of aging, body image, and achievement of successful aging. For the purpose of keeping this individual's identity anonymous, the older adult interviewed for this assignment will be referred to using non-specific pronouns, such as “she,” “her,” and “the interviewee.” I begin by first providing a general description of the interview and then

What I had discovered was that the older adult considers her health and wellness relatively good compared to her peers, but she still believes that there is room for improvement. When comparing this to her younger years, she had clearly indicated that she is more conscientious of her health now that she has aged. However, she has also stated that this change is less extensive to herself compared to her husband because she has always tried to be a healthy individual due to the influence of her nursing background. I can conclude from this that her lifelong involvement and knowledge on health has most likely provided her with a more positive than negative concept of aging. This is because the toll that age has taken on her could be considered relatively laid back compared to many others in her age

The interviewee said that the biggest way in which her body image has changed is that she feels like it is both less important and more difficult to keep up appearances. This is because although she feels young compared to her age, she most certainly does not look that way. The reason that she has given for feeling so young is because she is still very involved with her work and family, which she thinks has allowed her to keep a healthy body and a sharper mind. It is important to note, however, that although she does feel younger this does not mean that she is immune to the difficulties that come with maintaining one's health in old age. The things that she says make her feel younger are doing the things that she has either done many times before or doing the things that she loves to do. Overall, I can conclude that the interviewee’s body image is much less based on how she looks and more on how she feels, and that it’s because of her relatively good health that she feels so active and