The news that 58 is "over the hill" may come as a surprise to anyonewho has passed the milestone and feels they are not yet in the twilightof their lives.
这一结果可能会让那些已过58岁但却尚未感到人生迟暮的人感到吃惊。
They include Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the glamorous actressJane Seymour, who are both full of energy at 59. Kathryn Bigelow, 58,has just won an Oscar for directing the action-packed movie The HurtLocker.
The finding that we regard people in their fifties as gettingdoddery, despite the evidence that older people are living more activelives than ever, was revealed by academics from the University of Kentto a meeting of the Economic and Social Research Council, in London.
Professor Dominic Abrams, who studied data from 40,000 people acrossEurope, said: "The survey showed that age prejudice – being treated as"too young" or "too old" – is perceived to be a serious or very seriousissue by 63 per cent of respondents, so it is obviously important toknow what these age labels mean to people."
But the figures also showed that opinions differed among the agegroups. Younger people, those aged 15 to 24, thought youth ended atjust 28 and old age began at 54.
Men regarded the end of youth and start of old age to begin two yearsearlier than women did, according to results from the European SocialSurvey.
根据这一欧洲社会调查的结果，男性所认为的青年和老年的起止年龄比女性早两年。
There were also large differences among European countries. Youth wasperceived to end earliest among the Portuguese; they said it was at 29,while in Cyprus it was 45. The Portuguese also thought old age began at51 – whereas Belgians believed it took at lot longer, at 64.
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I think it depends on our thought,if you think you are young,you are. 1# 星期一 .gif)