Scales that measure body fat

How reliable are they? The rather cheap looking set at the gym told me I have 21% body fat – I thought it would be less.

I think the best way to measure body fat is to post pictures of yourself on here and let the forum members tell you.

Get the speaking scales instead – “One at a time, please”

21%v is not that high – but they are not very accurate I don’t believe

Also, get on the iDave diet – guaranteed to 12% body fat. I bet all the members will be chuckling away at you and your 21%.

truth ^

21 sound low chubster

Those scales are rubbish, they rely on measuring electrical resitance between each foot and making some inference using an algorithm to estimate body fat. They often have upper and lower output limist set so that they dont report “impossible” body fat figures. I know this as I worked on body fat measurement for a while. The only semi accurate way is a combination of floation densimitry and caliper measurements, or to estimate it using an mri/cat scanner.

I would ignore the whole issue of body fat measurement and concentrate on fitness/weight/size as a measure of your condition.

In that case I’m buff as . No iDave required, my own diet and exercise programme are working a treat.

They are so far from accurate you might as well guess. Seriously. I’m not being overly picky here, the numbers are more or less random between 10% and 40%. My mum is skin and bone and hers reckon she has 33% bf.

I reckon the best way for the layman is to download pictures of people who’ve had their fat measured and compare yourself. You need several pictures at each %age tho cos visible definition varies according to other factors it seems.

Also, get on the iDave diet – guaranteed to 12% body fat. I bet all the members will be chuckling away at you and your 21%.

I thought you were an advocate of the dry stone walling diet?

Body Fat scales are probably about as useful as the BMI calculation (according to which I have long been ‘overweight’ due to the caluclation being too stupid to account for having a lot of muscle)

They are designed to make people feel good about themselves, so I’d say you should add 4-5% for a truer picture….

Although the actual figure may not be accurate when compared to caliper measurements or a water dunking, they are at least consistent…well, the ones I use are. When my weight is fairly constant (and presumably my body-fat), the readout is also constant, drifting by maybe 0.5% fluctuation day-by-day. If I gain or loose weight the body-fat increases & lowers respectively. The readout never jumps by an odd amount. I find it to be an worthwhile and useful/interesting addition to the weight readout. It doesn’t bother me if ultimate accuracy is out by a few % so long as the readings are consistent.

Oh, 23% by the way…

Are they not just a guide and accuracy is not important? As I’m not a pro athelete I work on the principle that if the fat is visible and grabable, it shouldn’t be there.

No, they are not even a guide. They are utterly pointless. If you saw my mum you’d know why 33% was completely ridiculous and of no use whatsoever.

I thought you were an advocate of the dry stone walling diet?

Its certainly the most effective, but I think alot of people wouldnt be mentally strong enough to fit it into their daily routine.

I mean what would you rather do:

finish work, go back to your hotel and eat illegal plates of chips

or go and carry stones up the side of a fell to cuild a wall

You want a Withings scale. Weight, fat & BMI, draws graphs on your iPhone or Android phone. Very nice.