To capture and value the experience of ageing and what it means at a personal level, each outlet of The Body Shop provided a comment book for customers, visitors and staff to record their response to the statement "In my life ageing means to me". 7,300 entries were collected from April to August and the results of these comments are presented in this broadsheet to build interest and understanding about the many dimensions of ageing.
Over 200,000 years of experience contributed to this research, representing the cumulative age of contributors, who voluntarily shared personal insights and candour about their attitudes to ageing. Comments ranged from ambivalence, to rage about ageing, to deeply personal accounts of loss and grief associated with losing youth, status or loved ones. Paradox was frequent throughout the comments, with a sense of gain and loss conveyed about ageing - for example the loss of independence and the gaining of wisdom.
Themes were drawn from reading through the comments, and these themes were then used as codes to allow for interpretation of the data.*
* Up to three themes could be assigned to each comment, and comments could contain positive and negative themes.
| Under 16 (22%) | 16-20 (21%) | 21-30 (18%) | 31-40 (10%) |
| 41-50 (10%) | 51-60 (6%) | 61-70 (4%) | 71-80 (2%) |
| 81-90 (1%) | 91+ (1%) | Age not specified (5%) | Sample = 7,300 |