There is a saying that age is just a number which does not reveal the person marked by it. After all, what does being 70 years old mean to someone who feels 17?
That is in the mind, however. What about the body? Can your body be younger than your actual years through exercise, and older because of the lack of it?
In March, California Fitness gyms introduced the body-age test for members and potential members.
The result is derived after evaluating body composition; bicep, leg and abdominal strength; blood pressure; flexibility tests; and sitting heart rate.
Simply put, it means that the fitter you are, the younger your body will be.
Indeed, when LifeStyle put three people of various fitness levels through the test at California's gym in Bugis Junction, those who exercised regularly had a body age similar to their real age, while the one who did not exercise at all had a body that was supposed to be six years older.
According to Mr Sasidharan Unnithan, California Fitness Bugis Club's general manager, it is a guide towards a healthier you.
At the end of the 30-minute process, apart from specifying your body age, the results will also indicate your obtainable body age and provide recommendations on how to achieve it.
'Through all these measurements, the system gives you an estimation of your physical age, while giving pointers on what you need to work on in order to improve your physical age.
'That way, you can more effectively set targets for different aspects of your fitness and work towards a specific and sensible fitness goal.'
Doctors whom LifeStyle spoke to say the body declines naturally, so there is such a thing as a body age. But they are not confident about how accurate the test is and whether knowledge of the result serves any purpose.
Dr Jason Chia, consultant sports physician at the Singapore Sports Medicine Centre, points out that the body-age test measures only physical factors and that there are other factors which affect the body.
He says: 'As we age, the body undergoes certain changes, resulting in loss of physical fitness, and sometimes, in disease.
'The rate at which these changes occur differs among people, determined by genes and environmental factors, which include the amount of exercise or physical activity they engage in.'
Dr Tan Jee Lim, orthopaedic surgeon at JL Sports Medicine & Surgery in Gleneagles Medical Centre, makes it clear that the body-age test is not to be taken seriously. 'Measurements of body age taken at non-scientific labs are not accurate,' he says. 'They make use of impedances in the body to measure the relative muscle and fat, and then assign an age.'
Genes, climate and mental condition are other factors that he says will affect how a body ages, adding that such non-scientific evaluations are just to make a person feel good - or bad, as the case may be.
Dr Melvin Tan, a family physician at Ang Mo Kio Family Clinic, says while a bad result from the body-age test is not something to get depressed about, it should stimulate a person to do something about his lifestyle.
He says: 'The only purpose in doing this is as a wake-up call for someone who's overworked or stressed.'
That is exactly the spirit in which Ms Noeleen Goh, 30, received her body-age test result.
The physically active real estate manager says: 'It is quite a good reality check.'
