Your body age determines whether you live a healthy life and youthful life or not. Calculating your real age is also called chronological age. To calculate your body age, go through all your physical tests and current lifestyle. By assessing your body age, it will help you to know how healthy you are. If your body age is high, then you should make some necessary changes in your daily life and habits to decrease your body age as your chronological age is increasing. We have mentioned below some methods to calculate your body age easily.
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Testing Physical Condition:
- Find your resting pulse rate: Heart is a major and important organ of the body. It circulates blood in our body and supplies blood to all body tissues. Healthy heart is the reason behind a healthy life. Heart beats play an important role to calculate your body age. Normal healthy person has a heartbeat of 60-100 beats per minute in rest. But athletes have a heart beat of below 50 beats per minute. To know the heartbeat, point two fingers below your thumb on a major artery named radial artery. Feel the pulse and count it for 15 seconds and multiply it 4 times to get heart beats per minute ratio. Lower pulse rate means you have a healthy heart but if your pulse rate is higher than 100 then you have an unhealthy heart.
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- Add one in your chronological age if your pulse rate is higher than 100 beats per minute.
- Subtract one if your pulse rate is less than 60 beats per minute.
- Test your flexibility: Flexibility decreases with increase in age. Flexibility reduces in old bodies because of some factors like elevated dehydration, tissue modification, lack of muscle fiber with collagenous fibers, and elevated calcium in your bones. Your flexibility will provide you with a healthy body and muscles. To check your flexibility sit down on the ground, straight both your back and legs and hands out in front of you at your shoulder level. Beside your legs, mark on the ground the point directly under your fingertips, then slowly bend towards the mark maintaining your legs straight. Mark where your fingertips touched and measure the space between the two marks in inches.
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- Add one in your chronological age if your body stretches less than 5 inches.
- Subtract one if your body stretched more than 10 inches.
- If your body stretches between 5 to 10 inches then neither add nor subtract in your chronological age.
- Test your strength: Normally, people gain muscle at age of 30. But we slowly lose muscle tissue and physical strength as we go above 30. People over 30 who’re inactive and lazy can lose around 3% to 5% muscle tissue in 10 years and also lose physical strength. This loss of muscular tissues is known as sarcopenia, which means a lack of muscle strength and flexibility. In aged people, it increases the danger of frailty, falls, and bone fractures. Do many push-ups without stopping, straight your body posture and lowering your chest 4 inches above the ground.
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- Add 1 in your chronological age if you do pushups less than 10.
- Neither add nor subtract if you do pushups between 10 to 19.
- Subtract 1 from your chronological age if you do pushups more than 19 and subtract 2 if you do more than 30.
2. Measuring Body Composition:
- Determine your waist-to-hip ratio: Body fat is easily determined by calculating your waist to hip ratio. If you have a high waist to hip ratio then you have elevated fats in your body which cause high blood pressure, heart diseases, strokes etc. Measure your hips from your widest point and your waist two inches above from navel (in inches) and divide each other. By this you got your waist-to-hip ratio. You have elevated body fats if your waist-to-hip ratio is more than 1.0 in men and 0.85 in women.
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- Add one in chronological age if your waist-to-hip ratio is more than normal level.
- Subtract one in chronological age if your ratio is less than normal level.
- Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI): Your body mass index is another way to calculate your body age. Body mass index indicates your body fats. High body mass index means you have elevated fats in your body which is harmful for your health. To calculate your body mass index divide your body weight in kilograms by square of your height in meters. Body mass index = Weight in Kg ÷ (height in meters)². If your BMI is under 18.5 then you are underweight. If your BMI is between 18.5 to 25 then you are healthy. If your BMI is between 25 to 29.9 then you are overweight. If your BMI is above 30 then you are obese.
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- Add one in chronological age if you are underweight.
- Add two in chronological age if you are overweight.
- Add three in chronological age if you are obese.
- Subtract one from your chronological age if you are healthy or normal.
3. Assessing Lifestyle:
- Calculate your night sleep: Human body rests during sleep. Proper sleep is very important for your body to work properly. If you sleep well then you will stay healthy. Short and disturbed night sleep causes high blood pressure, heart diseases, obesity etc. Try to sleep 7 to 8 hours daily for a healthy life. If you get less sleep, your body becomes tired and weak.
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- Add one in your chronological age if you sleep 5 to 6 hours or more than 9 hours per night.
- Add two in your chronological age if you sleep less than 5 hours.
- Subtract 0.5 from your chronological age if you sleep between 7 to 9 hours per night.
- Avoid too much alcohol and smoking: Normal consumption of alcohol and smoking is okay but too much consumption of alcohol or smoking is injurious to health. It may cause lung cancer, liver failure, etc.
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- For alcohol:
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- Subtract one from your chronological age if you don’t drink.
- Subtract 0.5 if you drink within daily recommended guidelines.
- Add one in your chronological age if you drink too much.
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- For smoking:
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- Subtract 3 from your chronological age if you haven’t ever smoked in your life.
- Subtract 2 if you quit smoking 5 or more years ago.
- Subtract 1 if you have quit smoking in the last four years.
- Add 3 in your chronological age if you are currently smoking.
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CONCLUSION:
Your body age determines your body health. Your real age is your chronological age. Less body age means you have a healthy and active body. There are many ways to calculate your body age. You can calculate your body age by testing yourself physically, like checking your pulse rate, your muscles and body flexibility and your body strength. You can also calculate your body age by measuring your body composition such as by calculating your waist-to-hip ratio and body mass index (BMI). By testing your daily life routine such as assessing your daily night sleep and your daily alcohol consumption and smoking will help you to calculate your body health easily.