Better health reports when the grass is greener on your side of the fence? A cross-sectional study in older persons

Abstract

Objective: To study whether the luxury goods make older people feel in better health and whether this association is similar in higher and lower social classes. Methods: SMILE consists of a Dutch general population consisting of 2.637 men and women aged 60 years and older in 2007. The SF-36 was used to measure healthrelated functioning. Results: In the lower social class, having many luxury goods was related to feeling in better physical (OR 2.06, 95% CI 1.39-3.07) and mental health (OR 1.79, 95% CI 1.21-2.64), but not in the higher social class. Conclusions: There might be a health benefit of keeping up appearances, snobbism, and "conspicuous consumption" in older people from lower social classes. © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com.