By Denise Grady

His hair is grayer, and the creases around his mouth have deepened. The bags under his eyes make him look a bit weary. But his brow is mostly smooth, his chin firm, his neck taut.

If it’s true, as George Orwell said, that by 50 people have the faces they deserve, then President Obama (who just turned 50) has fared well. But what’s in the face at 50? As the tail end of the baby boom reaches that milestone and looks in the mirror, the collective sigh may well be, what happened?

Time, heredity, sunlight, illness, smoking, good fortune and bad — all leave their marks on the face. People make instant judgments about one another’s age, health, mood, personality and character based on facial features, and yet we often judge unconsciously, not fully aware of the cues we’re reading. There’s more — and sometimes less — to aging than jowls, wattles and crow’s-feet.

Across time and cultures, the idea that there are secrets to be deduced from a person’s features has been irresistible. Efforts to predict character and personality — even criminal tendencies — by analyzing people’s faces and the shape and size of their skulls date back centuries and have swung through cycles, being in vogue and being denounced as fakery.

In China, face-reading was an ancient art that mapped out more than 100 distinct regions and linked them to certain traits, illnesses, and even fate. Today, self-described face-reading experts turn up periodically on TV shows with flakily earnest pronouncements about public figures based on appearance. One told Tyra Banks that Mr. Obama’s big ears meant he would listen to the country and that the “radiance” from his eyes meant he was a visionary.

More.

[Source: The New York Times]