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August 15, 2005
Three Simple, Effective Ways to Measure Your Body Composition
According to the measurements used by most doctors, the Body Mass Index, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sammy Sosa are obese and Brad Pitt and Michael Jordan are overweight. Doesn't make sense, does it?
As you can see, the widely used Body Mass Index (BMI) can be grossly misleading. The problem is that the BMI uses simple height/weight tables that don’t differentiate between muscle and fat. And, since muscle weighs more than fat, a well-muscled person will have a higher BMI. Your weight may be fine according to the height-weight tables, but you may be flabby if you don’t have much muscle. Or, on the other hand, if you have a lot of muscle, you may fall into the overweight category, even if you are lean and toned.
For a meaningful measure of “fatness,” you need to determine the ratio of fat to lean tissues. You can then use that measurement to track your progress.
You can measure body composition in a number of ways. The three most popular are:
The skin fold test: This test involves measuring the thickness of the skin and fat folds at several key spots on your body using a caliper device. The approach is simple, fast, and provides an accurate measure of body fat. You can purchase calipers at exercise equipment stores or online at www.bodytrends.com.
Circumference measurement: This is a crude but useful approximation of body composition based on your waist and hip measurements. All you need to do is measure your waist (at the narrowest point) and your hips (at the widest point), using a tape measure. Your waist should measure at least one inch less than your hips.
Electrical impedance: This technique calculates body fat based on how well your body conducts electricity. (Water-based tissues are good conductors of electricity while fats are insulators.) This approach is not always very accurate, but it can help you assess changes in body composition over time. If you weigh yourself and measure your body fat at the same time of day, you can get a reasonable idea of how your body composition is changing. These electrical impedance scales are widely available at discount stores and often cost less than $100.
There is little point in measuring body composition more than once every two weeks. A healthy range of body fat for men is 10 to 20 percent; for women 15 to 25 percent. In most people, the leaner, the better.
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Posted by james at August 15, 2005 6:39 AM