What should you eat?

Start with a balanced diet containing plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. These foods may help prevent damage that contributes to premature skin ageing. Diets containing lots of sugar or refined carbohydrates can accelerate ageing, so reducing those is a more useful starting point than chasing a particular food advertised for firmness. The goal is a regular eating pattern that supports skin health, not a special menu that promises to pull loose skin back into place.2

Better elasticity is not the same as a lift

Elasticity is the skin's ability to spring back. Dietary interventions involving lipids and fatty acids have improved measured elasticity, while collagen has reduced wrinkles and improved hydration. These are useful changes, but they are different goals from lifting loose facial skin. Natural ageing also makes skin thinner and drier and reduces facial fullness. Food choices address only part of the picture, alongside age, genetics and environmental damage.123

Can collagen supplements help?

Oral collagen supplements can improve some skin ageing measures, with benefits depending on the formulation, dose and people taking them. In a trial involving healthy Thai adults aged 30 to 60 with mild to moderate facial wrinkles, a daily hydrolyzed collagen formula containing glutathione and vitamin E improved elasticity and crow's feet wrinkle roughness after 12 weeks compared with placebo. Hydration improved in both groups, without a difference between them. If you consider a supplement, keep the goal specific: a possible improvement in elasticity or wrinkles over weeks, rather than a visible lifting effect. The result applies to that combined formula, not automatically to every collagen powder.3

What matters alongside diet?

Protect your skin from the sun every day with shade, clothing and a water resistant, broad spectrum sunscreen rated SPF 30 or higher on uncovered skin. Avoid tanning, stop smoking and drink less alcohol. These habits target preventable skin ageing rather than attempting to reverse natural ageing through diet. Moisturizer can temporarily plump skin and make fine lines less noticeable, which is a smaller job than the word "firming" suggests. A cream or lotion cannot lift sagging skin.24

When is it worth seeing a dermatologist?

If lifting is your priority, a board certified dermatologist can assess whether a tightening procedure suits the amount of sagging. Ultrasound can produce modest lifting within 2 to 6 months; a surgical lift gives the most dramatic results. Procedures tend to suit smaller amounts of loose skin and are not suitable during pregnancy, with a skin infection or while taking certain medicines.4

Where this answer comes from

  1. 1Dietary interventions in skin ageing: a systematic review and meta-analysispmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  2. 211 ways to reduce premature skin agingaad.org
  3. 3Safety and Efficacy of a Hydrolyzed Collagen Formulation (HYCOS) for Facial Skin Elasticity and Wrinkles: A Randomized, Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Trialpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  4. 4Many ways to firm sagging skinaad.org