Many advertisements may highlight the power of self-care and individual empowerment to create happiness. These advertisements feature people of all ages taking charge of and making a change in their health to better benefit their own personal well-being through the practice of preventive care, fitness routines, or mindfulness practices, this allows the people to find their personal journeys. Each of these themes can portray happiness in advertisements and potentially real life as well.
Due to the misconceptions of depicting individuals as limited by physical decline, cognitive decline, and lowered mobility, this could potentially generate a motivated change within the senior citizen community. Khanaian (2020) suggests that older individuals must take the initiative to remain active and keep a consistent, healthy lifestyle to continue moving at a good pace during their later years. Rather than wait for solutions from another source, individuals can step up, adapt, and embrace their age. These medical advertisements can affect the way the viewer can think and perceive themselves and self-analyze their own life in comparison to the characters depicted in the advertisements. Bequaret (2021) References how there are older women who compare themselves to the models they see on television and in advertisements, which may cause them to engage in comparison resulting in the devaluation of the self. There may be senior women who feel that they can be just like the girls in the advertisements, so long as they use the same products as them. Househ (2014) discusses there is empowerment among older medical patients who use social media, as it is a way for these people to understand different health implications and concerns that are found throughout society. Participants can see the desire for a lifestyle change firsthand from other people who are on social media applications expressing their emotions and feelings about their health. Many older people can relate and feel a connection to those who are also struggling and or going through similar trials and tribulations within their own lives. (Heliyon 2020) takes a deeper look into how as people get older they become more aware of their health and more cautious. He studied empowerment in the elderly who do so through information seeking, achieving independence, learning to live with their health conditions, beginning to participate in care for themselves, and managing psychosocial capacities, which allow for better mental health and clearer thought processes. (410-9) These examples allow older individuals to empower themselves and create more productive lives as a whole.