A COMPARISON OF FOUR METHODS FOR ASSESSING PERCENT FAT

Abstract

Many individuals are concerned about their weight. In an effort to meet this interest, various commercial devices have been developed for assessing body composition. The efficacy of these devices has been questioned. The purpose was to compare one of the newer commercial devices (SCALE) with three common clinical methods of body composition assessment: bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), skinfold assessment (SF), and underwater weighing (UWW). The SCALE resembles the typical bathroom scale, however, in addition to weight, it provides an estimate of your percent body fat. Twenty subjects between the ages of 18 and 29 years participated in the study (13 males and 7 females). Each subject was measured by all four methods on the same day. The order of measurement was BIA, SF, SCALE, and UWW.TableA repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare the assessment results. An alpha level of 0.05 was established to determine significant difference. A significant difference (p < .05) was found between the measures of BIA and the SCALE, as well between SF and SCALE. No other individual comparisons or interactions were found to be significantly different. The highest measures for percent body fatness were found with SCALE. The results indicate that the SCALE provided percent body fat results that were not significantly different from those obtained by UWW. Although there were significant differences between the SCALE and SF and BIA, the difference between the means falls within the margin of error typically associated with body composition assessment.