Running head: REAL AGE

Real Age Paper: Final Draft

Amy Polzin
Ferris State University

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Real Age Paper: Final Draft

There are many factors that can be taken into consideration in order to measure a persons
degree of wellness. Some areas that can be addressed include health, feelings, diet, and fitness.
These categories can be broken down even further by asking specific questions that, based on the
answer, may be contributed to either making a person younger, or aging them. Using an online
health profile by Sharecare, called the RealAge test, a client can answer questions and evaluate
their health (Sharecare, 2015). For this paper, the client JN has completed the test and the
results will be evaluated.
Assessment
The clients chronological age at the time of the test was 48.6 years old. The test results
found that JN had a RealAge of 46.4 years2.2 years younger than her chronological age. The
results of JNs RealAge test show that some negative factors are contributing to her aging, but
there are also many positive factors that are making her younger.
Results
Positive
JNs health results show that the positive factors making her younger include good dental
health, such as brushing her teeth for two minutes twice a day and flossing once. JN is also a
former smoker, and quitting has contributed to keeping her young. She gets enough sleep each
day so she feels well rested, and this helps with keeping her young. Some other factors that she is
staying on track withwhich are neither aging her nor making her youngerinclude keeping
her allergies under control, protecting her joints, easing the change of menopause, keeping her
cholesterol levels under control, taking a daily aspirin, and avoiding sunburns.

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For emotional health, JN has many factors which contribute to keeping her younger.
These include being in a happy marriage, having a healthy sex life, staying in touch with friends,
managing stress in a healthy way, keeping a positive attitude, and maintaining a sense of
purpose. Factors which are neither aging her nor making her younger include having a pet dog,
because owning a dog reduces stress and increases physical activity (Sharecare, 2015).
JNs dietary wellness also has many positive features. Her dietary habits which contribute
to keeping her younger include eating a healthy breakfast daily, eating two to four whole pieces
of fruit daily, eating enough vegetables, eating at least one serving of fish per week, taking
vitamin D supplements, and maintaining a proportionately diverse diet.
JN also has a few fitness habits which are contributing to keeping her young. These
include spending a lot of time on her feet and moving around due to her job, and following a
workout plan that works for her.
Negative
Despite all the health habits that are maintaining JNs age, or even making her younger,
she does have a few negative behaviors that may be causing her to age. Health-wise, these
behaviors include a slightly elevated blood pressure. This can be caused by many things, and can
lead to several health complications. She also has a body mass index (BMI) of 30.85. A BMI
greater than thirty is considered to be obese.
Emotional health habits that may be contributing to JNs aging include holding financial
stress. Financial stress can lead people to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as overeating and
overdrinking, and can also cause depression, hypertension, insomnia, fatigue, gastrointestinal
upset, ulcers, and migraines (Sharecare, 2015).

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JNs dietary habits which may be contributing to her aging include not eating enough
grains and eating too much red meat. Whole grains contain more fiber and micronutrients,
which help protect you against cardiovascular disease and other health problems (Sharecare,
2015). Eating too much red meat increases the risks of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, due to
the elevated number of saturated fats (Sharecare, 2015).
Fitness habits making JN older include lacking in cardiovascular exercise weekly and
lacking in strength-building exercise weekly. Completing thirty minutes of cardiovascular
exercise daily can help improve heart and lung health and flush waste products from the body.
Completing thirty minutes of strength building exercise per week can help to reduce abdominal
fat, which can cause health problems, and reduce the risk of breast and colon cancer (Sharecare,
2015).
Area of Focus
Based on the results of her RealAge test, an area of focus identified for JN is fitness. Of
the fitness areas that were assessed, her results in two of the four areas were found to be making
her older. She currently does less than the recommended three and a half hours of cardiovascular
exercise per week, and she does not engage in the recommended thirty minutes of strengthbuilding exercises per week (Sharecare, 2015). Cardiovascular exercise is important because it
helps the heart, lungs, and circulatory system carry oxygen and nutrients to the bodys cells and
take away waste products. Strength-building exercise is important because it can reduce
abdominal fat, and building muscle and losing fat may help prevent breast and colon cancer
(Sharecare, 2015). Some risks of inactivity include weight gain, which increases a persons risk
of heart complications, diabetes, and muscle and joint strain. Currently JN engages in one to
three hours of cardiovascular exercise per week, which is a great start but should be increased to

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meet the recommended three and a half hours per week. She doesnt currently do any strength
building exercises on a regular basis. Based on this knowledge, fitness is an identifiable area that
JN could improve on, setting goals and planning interventions in order to improve in this area.
Readiness for Change
According to the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM), there are five stages of
change: precontemplation, when an individual has no intentions of making a change;
contemplation, when an individual considers the need to make a change; preparation, when an
individual makes a plan for a change; action, when an individual is actually taking steps to
modify their behavior; and maintenance, when the individual continues the behavior change
without reverting to the previous behavior (Catallo et. al., 2012). JN is in the preparation stage of
changeshe already exercises on a regular basis, and plans to adjust her workouts in order to
meet the recommendations. Based on this knowledge, the TTM can be used to develop a plan for
JN to help her set and meet goals in an effort to improve her health by evaluating the current
stage of TTM she is in and her readiness for change.
Another health promotion model that could be used to determine readiness for change is
the health belief model (HBM). The HBM states that individuals will take action if two
conditions are present: (1) There is a perceived threat (illness susceptibility and severity) to
personal health, and (2) the individual is convinced that the benefits of taking action to protect
health outweigh the barriers that will be encountered (Pender et. el., 2015, p. 29). Based on this
model, JN could determine that a sedentary lifestyle, leading to obesity and the correlating health
complications, is the perceived threat. The benefits of cardiovascular exercise and strengthbuilding exercise would outweigh the barriers.

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Wellness Diagnoses

Based on JNs fitness results and plans to improve, a few wellness diagnoses can be
identified. One wellness diagnosis for JN is: Readiness for enhanced physical fitness. This is an
appropriate wellness diagnosis for JN because she is aware that she needs to increase her
physical activity in a few ways, and she is preparing to do so. The problem areas have been
identified and she is taking steps to enact a new fitness routine. Another wellness diagnosis that
could be identified for JN is: Readiness for enhanced knowledge. She is aware of the need for a
change in her fitness routine, making this an appropriate diagnosis because she may need further
education on what makes these changes so important. She also is at an appropriate stage of
change to understand how increasing her physical fitness can be beneficial to her overall health.
Goals
JN could set two goals in order to improve her health. One of the areas she plans to
improve on is meeting the recommended three and a half hours of cardiovascular exercise per
week. She prefers to exercise five days a week rather than every day. Based on this, a reasonable
goal for JN could be: Within two months, increase cardiovascular exercise performance time to
forty five minutes per day, five days per week. Another area that JN plans to improve on is
performing strength building exercises, which she plans to do for thirty minutes per week based
on her recommendations. A reasonable goal for this area could be: Begin doing fifteen minutes of
strength-building exercises one day per week, and gradually increase time up to thirty minutes
per week within two months.
Interventions
There are several interventions JN could initiate in order to meet her new goals of
increasing her physical fitness. One intervention for JN is using the FITT formula, which is an

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acronym for frequency (how often you exercise), intensity (how hard you exercise), time (how
long you exercise), and type (which exercises you do) (Long, 2015). The FITT formula is
customizable to an individual based on the persons target heart rate. The target heart rate is
calculated by subtracting the persons age from the number two hundred twenty. So, with JNs
age of forty six, her target heart rate would be one hundred seventy four. JN can adjust each step
of the FITT formula as tolerated in order to meet her goal (Long, 2015). To ensure she begins the
intervention and stays on track, she could plan in advance the days and times that would work
best for her to exercise. For instance, if she likes to get her workout in right after work, she could
plan this in advance, making her more likely to actually do it. She could use a chart to keep track
of the days that she exercised and keep it somewhere she is likely to see it often, as a motivator.
Another intervention for JN to meet her fitness goals is to track her progress using exercise and
electronic fitness applications on a mobile device, such as MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper Pro, or
iFitness. These applications allow for personal information to be entered and can record fitness
progress, dietary intake, and can also function as a pedometer (Long, 2015). Tracking fitness
shows the positive changes that have been made, which reinforces and encourages the new
behavior. It also lets a person know when changes need to be made, and keeps one aware of
where they stand at any given time (Sharecare, 2015).
Based on the transtheoretical model, JN is in an appropriate stage of change to set such
goals and carry out interventions in order to improve her physical fitness. JN is in the planning or
preparation stage, in which an individual is seriously thinking about engaging in the behavior
change within the next month (making small or sporadic changes) (Pender et. al., 2015, p. 41).
JN is taking steps and making plans in order to begin her change in the near future.

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Evaluation and Reflection

To evaluate progress toward meeting her fitness goals, JN has kept logs for both her
cardiovascular exercise and her strength-building exercise completed each day for two weeks.
Though she has not yet met her goal of completing three and a half hours of cardiovascular
exercise per week, she is able to slowly increase the exercise she is doing and notices a
difference. She also has been able to meet her goal of doing thirty minutes of strength-building
exercise per week and has actually sometimes done more than thatas much as forty five
minutes. She feels that tracking her fitness helps her stay accountable, and is a good reminder of
the progress she has made. She did make changes along the way in relation to the TTM in that
she went from the preparation stage to the action stage. As of now, the plan is working well for
JNshe is gradually increasing the amount of cardiovascular exercise she does each week, and
is able to track her activity using log sheets in order to meet her goals. No changes in the plan are
indicated at this time.

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Appendix A
Cardiovascular exercise log for J.N.

In each box, please fill in the total number of minutes you spent doing cardiovascular exercise each day, for two
weeks.

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
total:

Week 1
0
15
0
15
0
20
0
50

Week 2
0
20
0
20
0
20
0
55

Did using this log help you to meet your goal of completing 3 hours of cardiovascular exercise
weekly? Why/why not?
I think having this log inspired me to be accountable for my health. Although I did not reach the
goal the time I have spent exercising has doubled. I feel more confident that I can improve. This
log will serve as a reminder and I can use it to help track my progress in the future.

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Appendix B
Strength-building exercise log for J.N.

In each box, please fill in the total number of minutes you spent doing strength-building exercises each day, for two
weeks.

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
total:

Week 1
0
10
0
10
0
10
0
30

Week 2
0
20
0
15
0
15
0
45

Did using this log help you to meet your goal of completing 30 minutes of strength-building
exercise weekly? Why/why not?
I think this log helped me realize some things that could be changed very easily to improve my
health. I went from no strength building to 30/45 min a week. I can use this log as motivation to
continue to reach small goals.

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References
Catallo, C., Jack, S. M., Ciliska, D., & MacMillan, H. L. (2012). Identifying the turning point:
Using the Transtheoretical Model of Change to map intimate partner violence disclosure
in emergency department. International Scholarly Research Network, 2012, 1-10.
doi:10.5402/2012/239468
Long, T. (2015). Exercise your right to be fit! American Nurse Today, 10(1), 37-38, 42.
Pender, N., Murdaugh, C., & Parsons, M. (2015). Health promotion in nursing practice (7th ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Sharecare (2015). RealAge test results. Retrieved from http://www.sharecare.com