Mariella Frostrup is stronger and more confident than ever

(Image credit: Getty Images / Mariella Frostrup)

Mariella Frostrup is an outspoken campaigner for women’s health issues, but now she’s tackling ageism in how many women in their 50s and 60s are viewed. In an interview with woman&home, the 62-year-old broadcaster and author says she thinks media and society have created an “atmosphere of fear about what ageing is”, with the view that 'women of a certain age' need to “stay in lane”. When, actually, for many of us, it can be a prime time of life.

“I think one of the things that really impacts you as you get older, because of all of the negative messaging around it, is the sense that you need to hunker down and stay in lane. Don’t disrupt, stay, making the choices you’re comfortable with,” Mariella tells us. In her opinion, women should be doing the opposite and use this stage to say “I’ve got nothing to lose if I challenge myself and try to broaden my experiences”.

Mariella says when she was in her 30s, she didn’t even think about being 50 or 60 because “it felt a million miles away” and “like a destination I wanted to keep as far in the distance as possible”. And while she knows her face and body have aged, the only other way she says she feels different now is positively, because of her “energy for living to the full for as long as I possibly can”.

Mariella has partnered with the travel insurance provider Staysure to end misconceptions about what life looks like for women over 50. While her life involves exciting work projects and planning adventures abroad, Mariella says this isn’t always how midlife women are expected to live. Research by Staysure found that 43% of over-50s feel less visible as they age and report being treated as ‘has-beens’ from the age of 56. “We’re not just playing bingo or asleep by 8 pm,” says Mariella. “In fact, we’re thriving more than ever before and have more of a zest for life than other generations.”

“If you think about how long you’ve got to live – for many of us, it’s not unrealistic to think we’re talking about at least three more decades, if not four. The idea that you’re relegating the rest of your life to just waiting to die, I think, becomes less and less appealing the older you get,” she says. “People don’t want to feel like their lives are going into a holding pattern. They want to do things.”

Mariella’s social media accounts are full of her professional and personal adventures. Whether it’s working with the government in her role as Menopause Employment Ambassador on the Menopause Mandate, which recently saw menopause being added to the NHS over-40 check, or cold-water swimming or eating with friends, she is a busy woman.

"You need to be strong and healthy and maintain your sense of adventure"

“You’ve got to cram as much in as you can,” she says. “You need to look at the bucket list seriously, and think ‘What are all of the things I like doing?’” For Mariella, this involves saying ‘yes’ to work opportunities and planning adventures with her husband, Jason McCue, including a trekking holiday in Colombia.

The journalist has talked openly about her experience of perimenopause and how taking HRT helped her manage her symptoms. In 2022, she co-wrote the book Cracking the Menopause with health writer Alice Smellie to share their menopause journeys and offer advice on what to expect.

Mariella believes going through this mentally and physically challenging stage of life is a “reminder that you need to be strong and healthy and maintain your sense of adventure, or you’ll end up in the dark place that you found yourself in the midst of perimenopause”.

She says she’s “returning to the person she was in her 30s, before she had her two children”, but with a “new strength and confidence that comes from having come through the other side of menopause”.

During our conversation, she recalls a situation where she was looking at a photograph from her 30s and thought to herself, “what a babe”. But she added that she can “instantly channel” herself back to how she actually felt about her body at that time, and she knows she definitely wasn’t feeling like anything which resembled a “babe”.

A few decades ago, she was insecure about her looks and her weight, but this changed once she hit her 50s. She started feeling “more confident and more independent and much less caught up in [her] looks”.

“Most days I look in the mirror and think to myself, 'Not too bad for 62’. It’s completely the reverse of what I felt when I was younger, and for me it just feels incredibly important that I harness those good, positive things about ageing and turn them into a really productive and exciting next phase of life.”

Kat Storr has been a digital journalist for over 15 years after starting her career at Sky News, where she covered everything from world events to royal babies and celebrity deaths. After going freelance eight years ago, she now focuses on women's health and fitness content, writing across a range of UK publications.

From perimenopause to the latest fitness trends, Kat loves researching and writing about it all. She's happy to give any fitness challenge a go and speaks to experts about wellbeing issues affecting people every day.

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