I don't mind having my photo taken - triple checked and filtered for Instagram - but 70 cameras pointing at me while I'm down to my knickers is a bit daunting. A robotic voice tells me to stay still and close my eyes as I stand in a huge curved scanner while classical music plays in the background. With a flash of light, 2,000 photographs are taken of my body, in the hope of capturing every mark, freckle and mole to analyse for different skin cancers.
This full-body scan is happening at a sci-fi-style clinic in Manchester city centre, with me wearing a dressing gown and hexagon-shaped rubber slippers. The millions of data points collected will create a 3D avatar of my body using AI. Over the past two years, the market for health MOTs has boomed, with people willing to pay hundreds, or even thousands, for them, and companies such as Prenuvo, Ezra and Neko Health raising millions in venture capital.
While Prenuvo and Ezra offer a whole-body MRI scan, I've opted for Neko Health, which doesn't delve quite as deeply, and comes with a more modest £299 price tag. There are currently 100,000 people on its waiting list. I will be screened for a range of different conditions, including skin cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, eye conditions like glaucoma, as well as kidney and blood disorders.
I don't have any symptoms, but what if they do find something? The body scan industry sees itself as a new frontier in healthcare, preventing disease before it has a chance to fully appear. But there is scepticism about how beneficial these scans really are for otherwise healthy patients.
My socials are inundated with videos of enthusiastic clients filming themselves in scan machines, getting their bloods taken and testing their grip strength. Hjalmar Nilsonne, one of the founders of Neko Health, wants to see this preventative treatment available for every individual, not just those who can afford to pay for it. "While medicine has progressed so much over the past century, primary care is still very basic.
Why wait until we see symptoms?" Nilsonne says. "The data is super clear - prevention is preferable to cure." However, GPs and doctors in the wider NHS are more sceptical, with NHS England warning that the popularity of these scans is leading to more "over-diagnosis, unnecessary investigations and avoidable anxiety". As well as having a scan myself, I've spoken to two women who had very different experiences.
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