Unique health and fitness assessment, BioScore, calculates and compares identical twins’ real ages with their biological ages

Identical twins may look the same and be born on the same day, but can health, lifestyle and fitness make a real difference to their actual biological age? To put the theory to the test, Fitness First harnessed its new, health, lifestyle and fitness assessment, BioScore, to challenge five sets of twins to determine if their biological age matches their actual age.

Captured in a fascinating video – available here https://youtu.be/_s8uWIQeZvo – Fitness First picked identical twins from a range of ages and backgrounds – from 22 to 63 – to see how lifestyle choices, exercise frequency and health all impacted their biological age.

Taking into account each twin’s health (including their height to waist ratio, lung function and blood pressure), their fitness level (tested with a series of short and simple exercises to assess aerobic fitness, power, strength, flexibility, agility and core endurance) and finally their lifestyle (a questionnaire that looks at lifestyle choices in and out of the gym, such as nutrition, stress levels, sleep and drinking habits), the health and fitness assessment calculated their biological ages, revealing some significant differences between it and their actual age.

  • Ruth and Cat (aged 29) discovered their biological ages were three and two years older than their real ages due to a hectic and stressful life in a band and other lifestyle factors, such as their social drinking habits and the fact that Ruth is a smoker
  • Zoe and Gail (aged 63) got a pleasant surprise when it was revealed their biological ages were actually eight and seven years younger than their real ages. The twins are both committed to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, having modelled for much of their lives and both being awarded the title of Miss Great Britain and Miss England which appears to have had a positive long term impact on their biological ages
  • Neshah and Nyah (aged 25) saw mixed results with Neshah slightly younger than her real age, with her biological age coming in at 24.5 years, while Nyah saw the impact of an unhealthy diet and lifestyle on her age, coming in at 27.5 years
  • Jonathan and Edward (aged 35) were disappointed to find their fitness ages were not younger than their real ages, coming in at 35 and 37. Though regular gym goers, the assessment revealed the twins often focus on set routines and BioScore highlighted that in cardio fitness for example, there are improvements that could be made
  • Brett and Scott (aged 22) found themselves taken back to their teens with their biological scores, which were 16 and 17.5 years old. Living a healthy lifestyle of keeping fit and not drinking or smoking helped the twins bring down the years

David Jones, Marketing Director at Fitness First said: ‘The real benefit of BioScore isn’t just that it highlights the specific areas people need to work on in order to improve their biological age, but also that it encourages people to act immediately on these improvements. Unlike fitness or health recommendations that offer long term or non specific benefits as an incentive, such as “helping you live longer”, the BioScore assessment gives immediate impetus to take action e.g. improve your biological age by three years or five years by taking the following specific steps. While on the surface each set of twins looks the same, the video revealed the extent to which our biological ages are impacted not only by diet and level of exercise, but also by lifestyle choices, such as stress.’

BioScore assessments are included within Fitness First’s BodyFirst and BodyFirst+ induction packages. For further information on BioScore please visit: www.fitnessfirst.co.uk/bioscore