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home Body fat test??
- Thread starter jay264529
- Start date
I bough a scale that supposedly measures your body fat with an accuracy of no more than 1%. It sends harmless electrical impulses through your body and determines you bodyfat % by itself.
Does anybody else use this method? I like it pretty much but don´t know if it´s really accurate.
Does anybody else use this method? I like it pretty much but don´t know if it´s really accurate.
pwr_machine
New member
Skinfold calipers are very inexpensive. There are cheap, plastic versions that give the same mm measurement as more expensive versions such as Lange. You could always purchase a pair and get someone to learn how to take the measurements for you. It's not very hard. It just takes practice. Also, a local university should have health and p.e. students that are learning and may be willing to use you, free of charge.
pwr_machine
New member
These types of bodyfat measures are typically not very accurate. Varying amounts water in your body from day to day can throw off the results.nEwSkIn said:
pwr_machine
New member
No, not exactly what I'm saying. Most likely, the scale he is referring to uses electrical conductivity to estimate fat-free mass. Muscle holds the majority of water in the body. Since this test is dependent upon hydration status, it can skew the results of his bodyfat.
bigguns15
New member
nEwSkIn said:
Actually, it's the opposite of this. If you are holding a lot of water (in your muscles), the scale will tell you have a lower percentage. If you were dehydrated, it would perceive that as less LBM and a higher percentage. I've heard these devices can vary as much as 10% based on hydration status. You'll probably find the best measure of bf to be skin fold calipers as pwr_machine said.
bigguns15
New member
nEwSkIn said:
It's true that there is some variation with calipers. However, it is generally less than +/- 3%. Also, hydration status does not affect this type of measurement as much as the bioelectrical impedence devices. With practice, the variation also decreases. Most importantly, have the same person check it each time and try to have it checked at the same time of day/same day every time. This will further decrease the amount of variation.
pwr_machine
New member
She meant +/- 10%. I've personally seen evidence that they can be up to 8% off. In Bigguns15 example, if you were actually 15% bodyfat, you would get a measurement as low as 5 or as high as 25%. I don't know of any device today that has an accuracy of +/- 1%, not even hydrostatic weighing or the DEXA.
