A look into the future … junk food-addict Amy Barrett Singh

• 

The future is… looking BAD

MUNCHING junk food, smoking and too many glasses of Merlot are all terrible for our health.

However, when you’re young there is often little visible evidence of the damage being done.

So NIKKI WATKINS met three girls in their early twenties who eat, smoke or drink too much.

With the help of computer wizardry (find out more at changemyface.com) we have shown them how their choices will reflect in their faces in ten years’ time.

And Sun Doctor Carol Cooper and The Harley Street Skin Clinic’s Lesley Reynolds Khan give their advice to our shocked trio.

The junk food eater

AMY Barrett Singh, 25, a teaching assistant from Tamworth, Staffs, eats calorie-laden junk food nearly every day.

Evening meals over a fortnight included curly fries, two frozen pizzas, a McDonald’s meal with a milkshake, breaded chicken, chip-shop food, two pub roast dinners, a chicken pasty and a veg pasty, Domino’s takeaway pizza, fishfingers, a microwaved fish pie, garlic bread and vegetable samosas.

This is alongside her lunches and snacks of biscuits, cakes, crisps and chocolate. She says:

“I know I have a bad diet, but I never meant for it to be that way.

“When I was younger my mum and brothers ate meat, so when they had their food I would make myself vegetarian food that was easy and convenient.

“When I moved out of home, I was also caring for my grandad and I was so busy I would grab quick snacks and quickly got into this bad habit.

“The picture is horrendous.

“I cannot believe this is me aged by just ten years, I could not bear to look like that at 35.

“I hate the wrinkles on my forehead, the crow’s feet around my eyes and the colour of my skin.

“I hate the double chin and bulges of fat by my nose.

“On my original photo I think my skin looks good and the comparison is shocking, showing you can clearly get away with murder in your early twenties.

“I am going to change my life as I can’t look like this in ten years. I am starting a healthy diet. I’m going to start eating more home-cooked foods and will replace my unhealthy snacks with lots of fresh fruit and veg.

“I think I will really notice the savings in money, as takeaways are not cheap. I’m sure my husband will feel much healthier with a new diet too.

“This is the best thing I have ever done as it has really made me think about my nutrition.”

CAROL’S VERDICT: “Junk food is loaded with calories, fat and salt.

“Weight is likely to go up and this kind of diet can raise your blood cholesterol levels and make you metabolise glucose less well.

“You’re more likely to develop diabetes and high blood pressure and even heart disease and a stroke as a result.

“The risk of heart disease depends on how advanced the changes have got by the time the person swaps to a healthier diet.

“If there are a lot of fatty cholesterol deposits, or blood pressure has been very high for a while, some changes in the heart and blood vessels might be irreversible.”

LESLEY’S VERDICT: “Processed foods are packed with fat and additives that can trigger inflammation in the skin and create skin-wrinkling free radicals.

“Expect a dull and lifeless complexion if your diet doesn’t include plenty of antioxidant-rich fresh fruit and green vegetables.

“Junk food is also full of sugar which speeds up the breakdown of elastin and collagen in the skin. This will result in saggy, loose skin and more lines and wrinkles — in short, premature ageing.

“Eat foods with a low GI index, which means swapping white bread, pasta and rice for wholegrains — and steer clear of sweets and puddings.”

The boozer

The demon drink … left-hand picture shows how booze will affect Emily Leonard

PICTURE framer Emily Leonard, 24, from Kings Lynn in Norfolk, drinks an average of 24.5 units of alcohol a week — ten units or one bottle of wine over the Government’s recommendation of 14. She says:

“I started drinking aged 15 on weekends and when I went to university we drank a disgusting amount.

“My alcohol intake has been cut down from my student days.

“Now I drink mainly at the weekends and the odd week night, because it seems the norm.

“I don’t really think about it. I was shocked by the picture.

“I know I should cut down and this definitely scares me.

“I hate the chubby face, how my eyes look small and saggy and the redness.

“I don’t want to look back when I’m in my thirties and wish I hadn’t drunk that much.”

CAROL’S VERDICT: “While it may take years to damage the liver, you can expect it to raise blood pressure within months, so it can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

“The 24.5 units is enough to lower the chances of conceiving, increase the risk of miscarriage and increase the risk of breast cancer.

“Booze also thins the bones. Plus it is a depressant, so it can affect mood, and impact on relationships.

“Stopping drinking reduces high blood pressure, often within weeks.

“Severe liver damage is permanent but, with minor changes, improvements can often be seen within two months.”

LESLEY’S VERDICT: “Alcohol dilates blood vessels which can show up as thread veins on the face.

“If Emily continues her lifestyle this is one of the problems she will most probably encounter.

“Alcohol can also cause rosacea which causes the skin to look red and flushed.

“She can also expect to develop more lines and wrinkles as her skin will be continually dehydrated.”

The smoker

Terrible for your health … smoker Lauren O’Reilly was shocked by the projection

LAUREN O’Reilly, 23, smokes 80 cigarettes a week. The purchasing assistant from Purley, Surrey, admits she wants to cut back as she realises the habit has terrible health implications. She says:

“I know that smoking is terrible for my health and I’ve been doing it since I was 15. I want to give up, so maybe seeing what my face will look like in ten years will push me in the right direction.

“The picture is really horrible, I look 20 years older rather than ten.

“The lines strike me first, and the crow’s feet around my eyes are so dramatic. My skin looks grey and I hate the wrinkles around my neck.

“I know I can look better than that if I quit smoking, so this will be the motivation I need.”

CAROL’S VERDICT: “Smoking 80 cigarettes a week is bound to impact on health.

“Young smokers have a five times higher risk of a heart attack. Heavy smoking causes bronchitis, emphysema, lung cancer, mouth and throat cancer, bladder and stomach cancer.

“Smokers can have trouble conceiving and are more likely to develop complications in pregnancy. Women who smoke go through the menopause at an earlier age and are more likely to get brittle bones.

“Smoking is also linked with gum disease and tooth loss.

Stopping smoking begins to reduce the risk of heart disease within days, and the benefits continue.”

LESLEY’S VERDICT: “The best beauty advice for anyone who smokes is to give up immediately.

“After sun damage, smoking is one of the main environmental factors causing premature ageing.

“Smoke affects the flexibility of skin, leading to lines and a thick, leathery texture.

“Nicotine narrows the blood vessels in the skin, depriving it of oxygen.

“The good news is even people who have smoked for many years, show less facial lines and improve skin tone once they quit.”

Read the whole article

This is a really fun and motivational way to encourage yourself to lose a few pounds…just email a picture of yourself to info@changemyface.com and we will send you a secure invoice for £39.99. Let us know how much you would like to lose and which areas you would particularly like toned.

Please contact and send photos to: info@changemyface.com

Police have issued a picture of how Madeleine McCann might look now after she disappeared from a Portuguese holiday resort. But how do you go about ageing someone?

Madeleine McCann’s face is probably one of the most recognisable in the world, but it is the face of a four-year-old Madeleine and that is the problem.

Two-and-a-half years after she vanished from a Portuguese holiday flat, police issued age-progressed images of how she may look today.

They are aimed at “pricking the conscience” of people who know what happened to her. But how are the pictures created?

Police use specialist age-progression artists to generate such images. They use different techniques, including drawing, but usually produce computer-generated images.

There is no specific age-progression software, but the artist uses existing computer packages to manipulate features.

As a child grows their eyes will largely stay the same but everything below the eyes grows outwards and downwards, says age-progression artist Auriole Prince.

“Trying to show how this growth changes a face is like piecing together a puzzle,” she says. “There’s an upside down triangle between the eyes, nose and the mouth. The relationship between these features is the most important in keeping the likeness.”

Ideally an artist will have an original portrait-style photograph of the person who is going to be age-progressed, along with other photos showing them at different angles and with varying expressions.

They also use photographs of other family members. As a rough guide, 70 to 75% of an age-progressed face can be extrapolated from pictures of the subject’s parents taken at the same age as the child, says Ms Prince. Pictures of siblings will also be helpful.

Along with artistic skills, age-progression artists also need to have a good knowledge of the anatomy of the face. This is because bone growth and dental changes can have a real impact on what a person looks like, especially at certain ages.

“From age four to six, like Madeleine, a person will go through a lot of changes,” says Ms Prince, who works with police and also worked for the National Missing Persons Helpline for eight years. She trained in the US with the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

“But some of the biggest alterations take place from age seven to eight. This is because a person’s underlying bone structure really grows, milk teeth fall out and the new teeth emerge.”

Contrary to popular belief, a child’s eyes do not remain the same size from birth. But their growth is minimal compared with the lower face. However, an age progression artist will sometimes shrink the iris- revealing more whites of the eyes – to imply aging, says Ms Prince.

In cases of vanished children, the child must usually have been missing for at least two years to warrant an age progression image, says Ms Prince. The child must also tend to be at least two at the time they went missing.

In terms of success in reproducing a likeness, Auriole Prince stresses age progression is more about renewing publicity and moving on the public’s perception of a person, than creating a facsimile of what a person may look like. They are often used in long-running missing persons cases like Ben Needham, who disappeared on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.

“In this case the public will still be looking for the four-year-old Madeleine and the police want them to look for six-year-old girl,” says Ms Prince.

BBC NEWS

Anna as a smoker…

Anna as a drinker…

Daily Mail 9th October 2010

Here are some examples of age progression projects I’ve worked on highlighting different ways we can age.

The England Cricketers in a campaign to highlight the dangers of overexposure to the sun.

Age progression imaging to show effects of ageing as a non smoker (above middle) and as a smoker (above right) for an NHS campaign.

An overweight teenager is aged over time according to her poor diet for the Sun Newspaper.

Left: An example of a ‘before and after’ showing nose reshaping.

Please note changemyface offers an image altering service and can not advise on medical procedures, surgical procedures or beauty treatments. Changemyface creates an image of how you would like to look and can not be held responsible for how you will look after any surgical or non surgical procedures or beauty treatments you may choose to go ahead with.

For more advice and information on cosmetic surgery treatments and where to get them done go to www.consultingroom.com and www.baaps.org.uk

Please email info@changemyface.com

Watch this space for “Drinking Time Machine” the ageing app that shows you older with the effects of alcohol…..