Keep young and beautiful - not to mention healthy - with these workouts and exercises tailored for every age group, to suit you and your family.

Age: 7 -16's

Your exercise task: To get your kids moving for at least 60 minutes everyday and for you to lead by example!

Why: The Chief Medical Officer recommends our children get at least 60 minutes physical activity everyday to help build fit bodies and a strong skeletal system. Reduced physical activity levels have also been linked to poor social behaviour and lower academic grades.

Ideas to get you started:

• Start a family pedometer challenge and each week set a prize for the family member who has done the most steps.


• Allocate an activity ambassador each week - they get to choose what activity the family do jointly at the weekend.


• Get on your bike - cycling is about the best family activity you can do as every one will be exercising at their appropriate level.

Age: 25 -35's

Your exercise task: To achieve a variety of aerobic exercise for a minimum of 30 minutes (minimum intensity brisk walking) 5 times a week.

Why: Studies have shown that from the age of 25 on our aerobic capacity decreases by 1- 2 % each year. This means your heart and lungs have to work harder to complete everyday tasks, though you may not feel it until you have to over-exert yourself such as running for a bus, or dashing up several flights of stairs to answer the phone. After the age of 30 the body secretes less growth hormone, stimulating the loss of lean body tissue and encouraging greater storage of fat.

Cardiovascular exercise boosts your energy expenditure important for weight management, maintains the stamina of your heart and lungs, improves your blood lipid profile which is important in protecting against heart disease and weight bearing cardio exercise such as brisk walking and jogging which enhances bone density.

A good age to start: Being physically active every day such as brisk walking and at least three more vigorous aerobic exercise sessions per week of at least 20 minutes duration.

A good age to stop: Making exercise and a keep fit campaign an annual event - integrate it into your everyday life now.

Age: 35-45

Your exercise task: Complete an activity audit to establish exactly how physically active you are. To give you a realistic perspective, invest in a pedometer, (a simple stepping device you can wear on your belt to measure the number of steps you take a day). Record how many steps you take in one day and aim to build up to 10,000 each day, this is the recommended amount to see an improvement in your health, helping to protect you against up to 20 chronic diseases including hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and colon cancer. If you don't achieve 10,000, don't panic, aim to consistently add an extra 5 - 10% of steps each day until you are regularly achieving your 10,000.

Why: In your 30's women lose 140 - 170 g/5 - 6 oz of muscle mass a year and can gain as much if not more fat mass. If you are not doing any weight bearing activity by the age of 39 you could potentially have lost 4lbs/ 1.8 kg of muscle mass and replaced it with body fat, slowing your metabolism down further and putting you on the slippery road to further weight gain.

A good age to start: Taking 7,000 - 10,000 steps on a reliable and accurate pedometer ( see joannahall.com for details) every day and start some upper body toning exercises to enhance bone density.

A good age to stop: Always using the car, bus, or taxi as a way of getting you from A to B. You only have one body so start using your body and invest in its health.

Age: 45-55

Your exercise task: Schedule in some sort of exercise or physical activity most days before noon. Studies have shown that individuals who take some form of physical exercise in the morning are 75% more likely to still be exercising after 12 months, compared to individuals who plan to take their physical exercise in the evening.

Why: In your 40's your body is exposed to a clustering of health concerns, which will be exacerbated by weight gain. 'Metabolic Syndrome' is the term for a cluster of disorders that place you at increased risk of chronic disease. These disorders include excess levels of blood fats called triglycerides, decreased values of high density lipoproteins (these are the good ones), high blood pressure, a high fasting blood glucose value and increased insulin resistance. Your waist measurement is one of the strongest indicators of this risk. For men the risk increases when their waist measurement is greater than 94 cms (37 inches) and for women the warning risk threshold is 80 cms (32 inches)

Women may also start to experience peri-menopause, defined as the time leading up to menopause and marked by an erratic fluctuation of hormones. For men testosterone, which helps the use of protein to build muscle, decreases with 20% of men after the age of 50 experiencing abnormally low levels.

A good age to start: Getting hot and sweaty with your aerobic exercise, find your exercise pace whether it is walking, jogging, cycling, swimming; you want to be breaking into a light sweat, ideally for 30 minutes on 5 days of the week.

A good age to stop: Swimming - it gives you great cardiovascular benefits, but, as it is non-weight bearing, it does little to halt the loss of bone density, specifically important at this age.

Age:55 onwards

Your exercise task: Commit to daily physical activity with weight bearing exercise.

Why: For women their biggest physical changes evolve around menopause both directly and indirectly. After menopause, (the average age is 52) women lose about 66% of oestrogen and 50 - 60 per cent of testosterone, contributing to as much as 1 - 2 per cent decrease in bone mass per year.

The oestrogen tends to decline at a faster rate than the testosterone, which in most cases encourages body fat to be redistributed from the hips to the mid-section encouraging blood pressure and cholesterol levels to rise. All these changes can put post-menopausal women at a higher risk for cardiovascular risk.

Osteoporosis is a degenerative bone disease that is characterised by low bone mass effecting both men and women. In people with osteoporosis the bones become brittle and more prone to fracture especially at the wrist and hip. One in 2 women who are 50 or older will experience an osteoporosis related fracture in their lifetime, but men are effected too. With on average 15 - 20 per cent of hip fracture patients 50 and older dying in the year following their fractures. Exercise, specifically weight bearing, can play a vital role in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.