Body fat scales

[renu1]

I would like to purchase a set of bathroom scales.

I have seen at places like K-Mart scales that are meant to calculate your body fat and I fail to understand how these things could be at all accurate. I haven't tried them.

Has anybody had any experience with these things? Do they work? (I very much doubt it) If so, how do they work, and just how accurate are they?

[1junglo]

I would like to purchase a set of bathroom scales.

I have seen at places like K-Mart scales that are meant to calculate your body fat and I fail to understand how these things could be at all accurate. I haven't tried them.

Has anybody had any experience with these things? Do they work? (I very much doubt it) If so, how do they work, and just how accurate are they?

Body-fat monitors/scales send small, harmless electrical pulses through a user's body in an attempt to gauge their body weight/density. Many body-fat scales display both body-fat percentage and body-mass index (BMI). BMI is a rough estimate of body composition that is calculated using a person's height and weight. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), BMI can be useful for determining if a person is overweight, but it's not a fool-proof method. For example, athletes with a great deal of muscle may have a high BMI reading even though they don't possess a lot of body fat. Similarly, body-fat percentages look at how much of a person's body is composed of fat. While both of these calculations can be useful, experts caution that they do not provide a complete picture of an individual's health. Experts say an individual's waist circumference, blood pressure and cholesterol levels are also important indicators.


Bench ScalesOverall, professional testers say body-fat scales aren't very accurate. That's because scale readings can be thrown off by a number of inconsequential factors such as how much water you drink, whether you have a full bladder or if you have foot calluses. In 2003, ConsumerReports.org tested six body-fat scales and found them all to be mediocre (scales consistently over or under estimated body-fat/weight levels). Consequently, the organization opted to no longer test these scales.