Where body fat lives is important to doctors because the fat around your midsection has been linked to conditions such as heart disease. Searching for a better formula, Dr. Woolcott has come up with one that's as simple as BMI but gives clearer results on body fat: relative fat mass , or RFM.
Woolcott, who led a groundbreaking study on the method, which has been validated in over 3, patients. Skip to content. Read: The Science of Eating. Are portable body fat scales accurate? Read: Is Intermittent Fasting Healthy? Should I stick to BMI? Tags: Obesity. Popular Categories. Scales don't generally measure weight effectively when placed on carpet. Many of the models on test display other information, such as BMI and body composition information muscle mass, bone mass and water , which could be useful if you're trying to build up muscle, for example.
Some also display goals that are based on your personal information age, height and sex and measured weight and body fat such as a suggested goal weight or daily kilocalorie intake. Body Mass Index BMI is often used by health professionals to assess whether a person is underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese. While BMI is a better indicator of health than weight alone, it's far from perfect.
The BMI categories don't allow for very muscular individuals; a person with lots of lean muscle and low body fat will be heavy for their height and could be classed as overweight or obese.
Similarly, some people may have a BMI that indicates they're healthy when in fact they have too much body fat and little lean tissue. You should only use BMI as a general guide to your state of health.
Accurate analysis of your body fat percentage, measured over time, is more useful. A healthy body fat range will differ based on age and gender, so when you pre-set your details for your body fat scale, you'll want to get them right. Body fat scales with Wi-Fi connectivity are appealing because they allow you to track your results through an app or website, rather than keeping track with a piece of paper.
In some cases, multiple compatible products like blood pressure monitors or fitness bands can all connect on the one app. We failed numerous attempts to set up the scales, with either the app getting stuck at a point in the process or the app failing to communicate with the scale.
Unfortunately, by the time we were able to get these scales to work, testing was complete and results would not have been comparable with the DEXA scans. Skip to content Skip to footer navigation. Top of the content. It's considered very accurate, Michael says. It's usually done at universities or higher-end sports facilities using something called the BodPod machine, which looks like a big egg that you sit inside.
These scanners are typically found only in elite medical facilities and large university research centers. If you're able to locate one, you may be able to get your body composition tested for a fee. Using calipers is a lower-tech way to measure body fat that's considered more accurate than body fat scales but less accurate than the higher-tech methods listed above. A health professional such as a personal trainer measures several sites on your body using a plastic tool that looks a bit like a protractor.
The tool is used to pinch the fat and skin in these areas to measure their thickness. The technician then plugs these numbers into a formula or calculator to estimate your body fat percentage.
Keep in mind, though, that the accuracy of this method depends on the skill of the technician using the calipers, Michael says. By Leslie Truex Updated August 18, Leslie Truex. Leslie Truex has been telecommuting and freelancing since She has been an Aerobics and Fitness Association of America certified fitness instructor since Video of the Day.
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