Does anyone use a

[Shay]

body fat scale. I was wondering if they really work accurately. Anyone have any experience?

[1sexy_mama]

Nope, that would be way too scary :yes

[Isabeau]

I don't either. A friend of mine has one and she's not happy with it. It's very inconsistent, you have to step on it in a certain way, etc. I'm sure there are a range of qualities and I'm not sure what hers is.

[Kent]

I have heard as well they are touchy to water content or the amount of hydration in your body. I say I heard because the one my MIL has NEVER has weighed me without erroring. I am tempted to buy one of those electrical impedence BF tools on sale at Target for $7.50, but they probably have the same problem.

[Effie]

I have a Tanita body fat scale. They tell you in the instructions to weigh yourself at 5 or 6 pm (before dinner) to get the most accurate reading. It definitely has something to do with how hydrated you are, but I don't know the physiological backing for this.

I usually take a reading first thing in the morning because that's when I weigh myself anyway. I personally think the number itself is WAY off, but it is consistant as long as weigh at the same time everyday. It's a good gauge to judge if you're going down, but other than that, the number itself is pretty useless. There are settings for adult/child and male/female, and then height in half inch increments. I find that if I set it on "adult male", my body fat reads at about 10% less than if I set it for "adult female".

Mainly I wanted a high quality digital scale that measured in half pound increments. The body fat feature was a bonus. I wouldn't recommend buying one just for that, but if it's an extra feature on a good scale, then it's just another fun toy.

[Momtofour]

Correct me if I'm wrong. How can a scale predict body fat? I imagine it just takes your weight and assumes at this weight you must be this % body fat. My husband is a big man. While in the Army he was consistently told he needed to lose weight. He was around 220 and they wanted him to be about 190. He had a test done where he was suspended in water to find his accurate body fat %. He was very lean. He then had a form he carried with him that said his weight was fine. If he stood on a scale I'm sure it would say he has a high body fat %. I never wanted one of these scales because I can't figure out how it could be accurate.

[Goldfinger]

I believe that these scales send electrical pulses through your body and measure the resistance of your body to the pulses. That is why for most of them, you need to stand on a certain spot (on top of pads). It sends a pulse from one foot and measures it through the other foot. Based on how much of the pulse is left and how long it takes to reach the other foot, it calculates a reading after you input whether you are male/female, kid/adult, etc...

This may also be why they are not totally accurate. The path followed would likely be up one leg and down the other. If a person is more "top heavy", then it would fail to measure this.