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AGING LIFESTYLE CAN ALTER PROCESS How old are you really? take the test

March 25, 2007 12:35 am

By JESSICA SIMON

If you look at her birth certificate, you'll see that Jane Zentz is 57 years old. But Zentz can claim a more youthful age if she wants to. An online quiz said she has the health of a 46-year-old.

Two years ago, Zentz discovered RealAge.com, a Web site offering a free test to determine the biological, or "real," age of the body based on family health history, nutrition, lifestyle and other factors.

Zentz, an at-home wife, mother and grandmother from Bourbon, Ind., was 55 years old then. And she was disappointed to find, when she took the test for the first time, that her "real" age was 59.5.

The result motivated her to develop a healthier lifestyle--the lifestyle that has since changed her "real" age to 46.

"I now have a fruit basket on my countertop instead of cookies," Zentz said of the changes she made after her first RealAge quiz. "I never ate fruit before, but now eat five servings a day and I love it."

The RealAge program doesn't just give out an age. It also gives participants explanations of the lifestyle habits that are making them seem younger or older than their years. From those explanations, Zentz said she learned some motivational lessons.

"[The program] taught how exercise is so important," Zentz said. "I get up and exercise first thing in the morning."

The program was created in 1999 by Dr. Michael Roizen and a scientific advisory board of medical doctors, scientists and epidemiologists. The test is based on more than 35,000 scientific studies on aging. These factors determine a person's "real age," or how old or young their body feels, based on the answers to more than 100 questions.

The questions range from whether you smoke to whether you get enough calcium to whether you wear a seat belt--a reflection of how risky behaviors affect life span.

"I have learned so much about my body, how it works and how to be younger biologically even though my age is older chronologically," Zentz said.

The concept of biological aging has been around since the 1940s, said Dr. Wojtek J. Chodzko-Zajko, head of the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Although he sees room for error in the validity of online tests such as RealAge's, he does believe they uphold the concept that not everyone ages at the same rate.

"Aging used to be something that just happened to you," said Chodzko-Zajko. "Now we see it as a process that we all partake in. We have more control in the aging process than we used to."

About 17 million people have taken the RealAge test, said Jennifer Perciballi, vice president of corporate communications for RealAge. Offers to try it pop up as advertisements on numerous Web sites, many of them health-related.

Beyond determining a person's "real" age, the test also offers insight on ways to potentially add years to your life. For instance, quiz-takers are told smoking causes a "real" age to increase by up to 7 years.

RealAge.com isn't alone in efforts to motivate people by computing biological age.

Another company provides something called a BodyAge test. It's generated by a computer program and distributed by Polar, a company known for its heart-rate monitors. The computer is equipped with tools such as a scale and a caliper that are intended to eliminate the possibility of people lying or being wrong about such things as their weight--something that can happen when people key in answers for online tests.

Found in many gyms, the BodyAge equipment tests how old the body feels based on age, height, weight, body fat, volume of oxygen levels, strength and flexibility. Then it prints out a determined "BodyAge," as well as numerous pages of information intended to help people reach their fitness goals. The results also provide an obtainable age--the age you can reach if you follow suggestions in the printout.

Life Time Fitness, a chain of gyms, has an affiliation with BodyAge. Blaine Dulin, a personal trainer at the Fairfax location, said it's used as a motivator and educator for gym patrons.

"It's like a first marker for us," Dulin said.

Dulin said the test takes between 15 and 20 minutes to complete. Members can use it for free at any time but are advised to use it every three months.

"Seeing the results on paper really hits home," Dulin said.

American Family Fitness in Mechanicsville also uses BodyAge.

"I love it," said Patricia Leonard, a personal trainer there. "It makes them [clients] feel accountable. They might forget some of the stuff I say, but the printouts will refresh their memory."

Finding out her "real" age certainly helped Zentz, the Indiana grandmother, get motivated to be healthier.

In the two years since she first took the RealAge test, Zentz has lost 34 pounds and gone from a size 12 to a size 4. And if she wants to, she can put fewer candles on her birthday cake--all because she changed her eating and exercising habits to lower her "real" age.

"I have energy to burn," Zentz said.