Health of the Nation: How our Health Calculator works

Your “health age” is a good way to check if you need to consider some lifestyle changes. Find out yours. Take our test.

A good way to find out how your lifestyle is affecting your health is to check your “health age” using a calculator.

If it finds your “health age” is older than your actual age it’s probably time to get a check up with your GP and consider some lifestyle changes.

The calculator is not measuring your life expectancy. However, a low score might mean you have a risk factor for chronic diseases like heart disease or diabetes that you could reduce if you make changes.

Even if your “health age” is lower or the same as your actual age it’s still advisable to make sure you eat mostly vegetables and keep up a good exercise routine.

HOW DO YOU CALCULATE YOUR ‘HEALTH AGE’?

The calculator considers factors known to influence health, such as diet, exercise, and medical check-ups. Users answer a series of questions and each response is assigned a weighted score.

If the score suggests you are making healthier choices, your health age may be lower than your real age.

If your score reflects poor health habits, your health age may be higher than your chronological age.

Little changes can add years to your life

While the tool provides an indicative measure our health age, it does not take into account genetic factors that can only be detected through blood tests.

TRY OUR HEALTH CALCULATOR

WHAT YOUR RESULT MEANS

Health age younger than chronological age

Keep doing what you’re doing, eat lots of vegetables and keep exercising.

Health age the same as your chronological age

Keep doing what you’re doing, eat lots of vegetables and keep exercising, and see if you can bring your biological age down!”

Health age 5-10 years older than chronological age

Cut back on drinking and smoking and try and lose some weight, have a blood test to check cholesterol and blood sugar, check blood pressure and review family history of disease.

Health age 10-15 years older than chronological age

Go to your GP to test for diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and advice on aggressive weight loss and exercise intervention consider meal replacement programs.

Health age 15 plus years older than chronological age

Go to your GP. A medical assessment is essential to check for undetected disease. Aggressive intervention including weight loss medications may be needed.

The Health of the Nation health calculator has been developed based on methodologies used by the Mayo Clinic and World Health Organisation and leverages a Frailty Index to estimate an individual’s health age (biological) compared to their real age (chronological).

SIGN UP FOR SAM WOOD’S FREE 8-WEEK HEALTH CLUB HERE

Originally published as Health of the Nation: How our Health Calculator works