You may have been guilty of this.  In chattin with an older person you use the term “sweetie” or “dear.”  That’s not a bad thing, right?  Well, it turns out that it may actually have negative health consequences.

““Those little insults can lead to more negative images of aging,” Dr. Levy said. “And those who have more negative images of aging have worse functional health over time, including lower rates of survival.””

“In a long-term survey of 660 people over age 50 in a small Ohio town, published in 2002, Dr. Levy and her fellow researchers found that those who had positive perceptions of aging lived an average of 7.5 years longer, a bigger increase than that associated with exercising or not smoking. The findings held up even when the researchers controlled for differences in the participants’ health conditions.”
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