What is RealAge?

It's most common, of course, when someone rudely asks you your age to think in terms of chronologic age. You are very aware (and may even grumble) when you pass the big milestones -- for example, when you turn thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty or ninety. But this way of thinking -- couching age only in terms of chronologic age -- does not do justice to the complex (and, happily, often reversible) process that aging actually is. You have an age that more truly reflects how much your body has aged -- your RealAge. It can be many years older or younger than your chronologic age, depending on your choices -- how well you care for your health and well-being.

If your RealAge (physiologic age) is five years younger than your chronologic age, for example, it means that your rate of aging is such that you are in the same shape physiologically as the average person who is five years younger than you. Likewise, if your RealAge is five years older than your chronologic age, you have aged to the same biologic condition as someone who is five years older. But you do not have to despair -- the great thing about the science of the last twenty years is it shows you how to slow and, yes even, reverse your aging. Instead of the one-size-fits-all nature of chronologic age, RealAge reflects you, as a unique individual, and the choices you've made for yourself.