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61-year-old influencer shows how to age well in viral Instagram dance videos
Korean-American influencer Mimi Ison wants people to understand that middle age is not a limitation
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Posting videos on social media of yourself dancing or lip-synching to music is a young person’s game. So the fact that Instagram dancing sensation Mimi Ison is 61 – and pulls off complicated, high-energy dance moves impressive in someone half her age – instantly sets her apart.
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Just as unusual is the Korean-American’s attitude to ageing, which she shares on @heymiddleage, an Instagram page that has amassed 467,000 followers since she started posting what she calls “midlife pro-age motivation” content on it two years ago.
Petite, graceful and athletic, Ison hit a low point emotionally and physically when she was 55.
“I went, ‘What is going on? Why am I so stressed out? What’s happening to my body?’” she recalls over a cup of coffee in the Los Angeles neighbourhood where she lives with her Filipino-American husband Bayani Ison, a 64-year-old sales consultant and part-time Hollywood actor.
“My mom had passed away that year, my only child was graduating from high school and I was burned out at work. And I didn’t know at the time that a lot of what I was experiencing was perimenopause.”
Information about perimenopause and menopause was sparse back then, she says.
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