What You Need to Know Before Purchasing Your Body Fat Water Scale
The body fat water scale is a scale used to measure one's body fat percentage by fully immersing the person under water.
This is also called underwater weighing or hydrostatic weighing. This method actually aims to measure the density of the whole body by measuring its volume.
The standard way of doing this is in a stainless steel water tank with a chair attached to underwater scales.
This would also require the person being weighed to expel all the air in his or her lungs for the reading to be more accurate.
A scale like the one above is a glorified BMI machine, this will not give an accurate showing of your bodyfat percentage.
Importance of Knowing
The importance of knowing one's body fat percentage lies in the fact that it is a more accurate indicator of whether you are actually healthy or not.
The standard height-weight measurement can sometimes be inaccurate because some people have bigger bones and muscles which make them weigh more.
And when these people compute their BMI (Body Mass Index), it would show that they are overweight (which they would interpret as being unhealthy) when in fact they are perfectly healthy. So knowing one's fat percentage is the better health indicator.
Before using the body fat water scale the person is weighed outside of the water for comparison to the results of the person's weight taken while totally immersed under water.
The rationale for the use of this water scale is that bone densities and muscle densities are actually higher than the water density. But the density of fat is less than that of water.
This means that when a person's weight is taken is under water, the one with more fats would weigh less and be more buoyant as compared to a person who has more bones and muscles.
The fat percentage is then computed using either the Brozek equation or the Siri equation. Interested in lowering your bodyfay? I suggest you have a look at the diet solution program.
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Standard Measurement
Of course this method is thought of by many as the standard measurement, but there are a lot of factors that may affect its results.
One of those factors that should be considered is the fact that no one actually expels the all the air from their lungs when breathing out.
So measurement of residual volume of air in the lungs should be done. Also for accuracy, there should be no movement in the tank, not even by the wind. It has to be very still when doing this measurement.
Different Factors
Another thing to consider also when using the body fat water scale is the build of the person being weighed. There are factors that may give inaccurate measurements when using the underwater weighing.
An example of this is an elderly individual who has less dense bones due to osteoporosis my present with higher fat percentage, while an athlete with denser bones and muscles may present will less fat percentage.
Although there are a few considerations to look at, like the density problems with some body types, and of course there a lot of people who would feel uncomfortable being submersed underwater in a steel tank, the body fat water scale is still being used and is still one of the standard measurements for body fat percentage today.
If done correctly and in the right circumstances, the results taken from it can be quite accurate.