Tanita Body Fat Scale

[Guinness]

Anyone here got one? What I'm curious is, how closely they correlate with other methods (skin-fold/water displacement). I have a feeling, my tanita is about 2% low, but I've never done another method to compare and see how closely related they are. Trying to find a place here in SA that will do the water displacement, but haven't been successful with that search yet.

 

[HappyScrappy]

you can also get air displacement ones as well - my gym has one. called the bod pod I think.

as for the tanita, I think they are pretty worthless. mine was consistently reading that I was 14% on the athlete setting and 23% on the normal person setting. I can see abs, so neither of those sounded that accurate, but I was willing to live with the 14%.
then I did more cardio, pgf2, and anavar and could see a definitely drop in bf around my abs and the tanita went from reading 14% to 10% consistently for a few days.
then it went back to reading 14%.

oh well.

I like latona's theories on the tanita scale - funny

 

[plifter]

Try the air test, you're probably fatter than you think. I've been dieting for 2 months and I'm still a lard ass in the pod test. I just want to see if anyone else gets a higher reading than what they expected.

 

[Guinness]

Never heard of the air test Plifter...what's it's "official name"? Gonna try and look up on the web to see if anyone here in SA does it.

 

[Peyote Killa]

Tanita is an alright method, the two most accurate methods other than an autopsy, are the Durnam&Wortham formula, and water displacement. Those two are by far the most accurate, but you will never be 100%, BF tests are not here for accuracy but rather to detect a change in our body. That is there main purpose, so if you are taking these tests in hopes to find your true BF you are SOL. Not tring to be a dick but thats the way they work.

 

[Guinness]

Peyote,

completely understand that the main reason you monitor this stuff is to measure change over time...I took a ton of stats in college, so I am well briefed in the difference and nuances of reliability and validity. I guess I was just curious if anyone had used the tanita and established their BF baselines, and then did a comparison with some of the other, more "accurate" methods. There are a ton of factors that affect the tanita measurements (i.e. water intake, food intake, exercise, time of day, blah, blah, blah), and I don't think the water displacement has quite as many potential confounds as the tanita.

Just curious, but good point well taken....

 

[Yellowbomber]

Tanita is a bullshit, I have one and when it tells you 13% you are 8% bodyfat

 

[Guinness]

Yellow,

How can you be sure? Have you measured yourself on the Tanita, and then gone and measured yourself using another method right afterwards? Actually, I'm thinking that it might be wrong, but in the other direction. It tells me that I'm a 13%+, and I'm guessing I'm closer to 15% or so.....so it surprises me that you think it's too high.....

 

[Workin_at_it]

I've noticed problems with the Tanita as well. My Theory:

Tanita works on the theory of body mass impedance testing. The original scientific studies done on this used test points on one ankle, and the opposing wrist. Most current BIA testers use one ankle, and the wrist on the same side of the body. Both measure impedance across the entire body, considering an average person to be a 'tube' of meat.

With the Tanita test, the impedance testing is from one leg to the other. The distance is estimated from the 'height' factor you enter. This is also used with your body weight to estimate a body type. This causes distortion in results for people with very long or short torsos. If you have a long torso/short legs, you can find reading to be off +-3% (typically high) while very long legs yield lower readings.

Also the following conditions distort readings (typically effecting hydration).

1) Alcohol content (high readings)

2) Diuretics and Caffeine (high readings)

3) Recent strenuous exercise (high results)

4) Recent Food intake, (high results)


There are numerous reasons why this can be off by as much as 4-5% in its readings.

That said - be consistent in when you take the reading, stay hydrated, and you should be able to track changed in body fat pretty accurately.

Me, I have a 30 inch inseam on a 6' frame - very long torso. I'm also taking Xenadrine, and at first was measuring my weight/BF, after getting home from an evening workout. So of course my reading were all fucked up.

(I went through all this when my machine reading was 4% higher than a body immersion reading)

 

[LawDawg8]

I have a Tanita and have found it to be somewhat accurate, but I don't put a lot of stake into the readings as representative of my actual BFI. It is a worthwhile tool, however, when cutting because it will pretty well give you a good reading of drops in bodyfat over a period of time to see how much body fat you've lost.