Fitness First has made waves across the internet with a new campaign promoting its BioScore health and fitness assessment.

The video, which has racked up close a million views so far across Facebook and YouTube, invites five pairs of identical twins to determine if their biological age matches their actual age. The experiment follow previous research on identical twins in Finland, which concluded that lifestyle plays a far more important role in health and biological age than DNA.

BioScore – which comprises health, fitness and lifestyle assessments – is now included within Fitness First’s BodyFirst and BodyFirst+ induction packages and forms part of the chain’s ongoing investment in unlocking the secrets to motivation.

After being put through their paces in the video (see below) the twins are shocked to discover how lifestyle choices have impacted on their biological 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.”

See how the twins fared (VIDEO)