Forget cancer. How can I avoid wrinkles?

Dear Newsweek. Can we talk?

I have some questions about your April 24 cover. It's stamped with "Health For Life" and "With Harvard Medical School" labels and trumpets the headline "Why Women Can't Sleep." All very impressive. But...there is something incongruous about the bulleted sub-heads under the headline: "Pregnancy & Depression" (a crucial topic to be sure), "HPV: A 'Cancer Shot'?" (still with you), and "Secrets for Youthful Skin."

Um, huh? You think that the war against wrinkles warrants equal bulleted status with depression and cervical cancer? For serious?

I guess so, since not only do you attack the gruesome horror of visible aging with gusto but you place this daring manifesto on wrinkle creams BEFORE the article on the relationship between pregnancy and depression. Yes, we may be sleepless, depressed, and riddled with cancer, but medical science is working overtime to make sure we don't look it. As if we don't get enough of that nonsense from the REST of the media. Shame on you, Newsweek.

Is there really any wonder we're depressed? While men work on their stock portfolios so they can afford a younger woman in their old age, women are still encouraged to see our bodies as our most important commodity. God forbid that we should age and depreciate in value; wrinkles on a woman are like rust on the bumper of a used car. They kill your Blue Book.


I read the skin article, by the way, thinking maybe the cover line was misleading and the piece actually addressed skin cancer or something important. Alas, the first line: "Every woman dreads the day when she glimpses the first wrinkle in her otherwise smooth skin." SIGH.