GET TO KNOW HOW LONG YOU WILL LIVE...

We're all living longer than ever - but will a poor lifestyle send some of us to an early grave?

Worldwide, a girl born in 2012 can expect to live to 73 and a boy can expect to live to 68, according to a recent World Health Organisation report on life expectancy.

In the UK, life expectancy for a boy born in 2012 is 79 and for a girl it is 83, meanwhile in the U.S. it is 76 and 81 respectively. 

But are your habits and lifestyle knocking years off your life?

In a bid to raise awareness about the risk factors for a premature death, Canadian medical experts from various organisations - including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research - compiled this life expectancy calculator.

Called Project Big Life, it was created by a team investigating the deaths of 70,000 people - and how different health behaviours affected the risk of death. It takes into account a person's height and weight, if they smoke (or ever have) and how often alcohol is consumed.

Fruit and vegetable intake is also taken into account - in particular the quantity of fruit juice, salad, fruit, salad, potatoes and carrots consumed each week.

Later questions relate to exercise; how many hours are spent a) jogging or running and b) playing ice hockey, soccer, basketball, volleyball, or rollerblading.

Activities such a walking, cycling, gardening, golfing, bowling and fishing are calculated as leisure time.

TAKE THE TEST HERE

 

While the health dangers of smoking are well known, research is increasingly showing that being obese and/or sedentary may be just as bad. Last month, Australian researchers warned that lack of exercise is a worse risk for women over 30 than obesity or smoking.

And a study published in the British Medical Journal reported that stress can lower life expectancy. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found the risk of heart attack or stroke increases by 20 per cent when a person suffers from low-level stress.

Mental illness has even more of a toll and is as bad as smoking, according to Oxford University research published last month.

Serious mental illness can reduce a person's life expectancy by 10 to 20 years, when the average reduction in life expectancy for heavy smokers is eight to 10 years.

+1

Across the globe, life expectancies are increasing with the highest male life expectancy being in Iceland - 81 - and the highest female life expectancy being in Japan - 87