The InBody analyzes your body composition by utilizing varying frequencies of a low- level currents to all four limbs of the body. This allows the direct measurements that are much more accurate than a device that utilizes a single frequency and applies it only to the legs.

Your weight is the first thing measured when stepping on the body composition analyzers. However, we know that your weight alone does not tell you much about your health or your body composition unless you also know your fat and muscle percentages.

Body Mass Index (BMI), a very general grouping is used a baseline for the general population based on height and weight. However, two people of the same height and weight can have very different relative proportions of body fat and therefore very different body compositions. In fact many professional athletes BMIs would put them in an obese category.

Lean Body Mass (LBM) is the total body weight minus the fat mass. The accepted normal range for LBM is dependent on the height and gender of the subject being measured. For males, the standard LBM is the amount of LBM that would give a BMI of 22 and a body of 15%. For females, the standard amount of LBM is the same BMI (22) and a body fat of around 23%.

Fat Mass (FM) is calculated by subtracting the LBM from the total body weight. The Percent Body Fat (%BF) is calculated by dividing the FM by the total body weight. The normal range for males is 10-20% and for females 18-28%.

Total Body Water (TBW) is what is actually measured to determine LBM. It is composed of all the non-fat weight of your body, both intracellular and extracellular. When the electric current is applied to your body, the lower frequencies travel around the cells and the higher frequencies through the cells.

Intracellular Water (ICW) is a measure of the amount of your TBW that is contained within the cell membranes of your tissues. In young healthy tissues, a greater proportion of TBW is in the cells.

Extracellular Water (ECW) is a measure of the portion of TBW outside of your cells as interstitial fluid. It is equal to the TBW minus the ICW. Changes in ECW can be temporary caused edema, the swelling of the legs that can occur in certain disease conditions, and also aafter standing for long perions of time.

Extracellular/Total Body Water (ECW/TBW) is a measure of the “quality” of your LBM. The lower the ratio, the healthier your LBM. It can help to diagnose health conditions even under the normal LBM, when in fact a higher than normal portion of it is ECW. For adults the ratio ranges between 0.36 to 0.39. However once levels exceed 0.40, it can be a an indication of a health condition.

BIA Foot Scales

This is a traditional digital scale that incorporates BIA technology to determine body fat percentage.  Many people have purchased these to use at home, unfortunately they can be wildly inaccurate.  The device requires your age, height, and gender and computes your data for your body fat percentage while standing on the scale.

However, the accuracy of such a device has some serious flaws. What’s important to know is BIA scales such as these only send a current up one leg and down the other.  This means that impedance (the metric that all BIA devices use to compute results) is only directly measured in the legs. They use your leg data to estimate the whole body to estimate your body fat. You should not feel confident in BIA foot scales.

Handheld BIA Devicess

Handheld BIA devices such as the ones carried by many gyms can be even more unreliable.These devices operate similarly as BIA scales, except instead of measuring the legs, handheld BIA devices send the current from one arm to the other.  They will then estimate everything from your chest down. This means that these devices are guessing what your overall body composition is based on the composition of your arms.

Inaccurate results are common for the majority of the population. For example, if your arms are the most muscular part of your body and you carry the majority of your fat in your midsection, a handheld BIA device will not be able to account for these differences.  Handheld BIA devices only directly measure the arms. Everything else is just estimation and guesswork.

“Whole Body” Impedance Devicess

There are also more conventional BIA devices that require you to lie down while a technician attaches adhesive electrodes to the whole right side of your body.   Just like scales and handheld devices, these devices don’t measure the entire body, even though they might appear to do so.  However, instead of completely missing the upper or lower half of the body like BIA scales and handhelds do, these devices operate differently – but have just as many issues.

In the case of conventional BIA devices, four electrodes are placed on the right half of the body.  These devices is that they treat the entire body as a single unit or “cylinder.”  This means that while the device is collecting data, it treats your arms in the same way it treats your trunk/torso. However,  the trunk’s composition is significantly different than an arm (it contains the internal organs and contains a much greater amount of Lean Body Mass. These systems also provide false readings and inaccurate results.

Direct Segmental Multi-frequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (DSM-BIA)

The three devices described above are the only BIA devices most people are are familiar with. That’s why, including for those described above, people have very good reasons for having low confidence in older BIA technology. However, the industry has addressed the flaws by creating Direct Segmental Multi-Frequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (DSM-BIA). It’s a the new, modern approach to BIA technology that, for the first time, directly measures the entire body.

Unlike any of the previous methods or devices above, devices that employ DSM-BIA do not leave any section of the body unaccounted for.   DSM-BIA analysis has the body divided into 5 segments and the impedance for each segment is measured independently.

The best part of DSM-BIA technology is it allows a doctor, researcher, or fitness professional to create a full picture of a client’s body fat muscle and water composition.  It allows each segment of the body to be measured independently, just as DEXA does, but does it much quicker and more conveniently than DEXA –one of the major advantages of using a BIA device.

Body composition is the next big thing in health, medicine and fitness. With a clear understanding of your body composition, you can improve your health and change your life for the better. Simply put, you’ve got to know your body composition if you are in any way serious about managing your weight and improving your quality of life.

Simply stepping on a scale and measuring your weight unfortunatly is not an indicator of your quality of health. Scales are not able to distinguish between pounds that come from body fat, lean body mass, water or muscle. Obesity, the condition of carrying too much fat puts a person at risk for many serious medical conditions including heart disease, diabetes and even certain forms of cancer.

Regardless of your health and fitness goals, understanding your body composition will help you reach your health, wellness, and fitness needs with meaningful data points. For example, we provide full-page, in-depth results sheet detailing the muscle, fat, and water values of your body in minutes to help you understand, track and improve you fitness.

How is body composition measured?

Today, there are a variety of ways body composition can be measured. Some ways are inexpensive, though considered less than accurate, such as a hand-held device or bathroom scales. Historically, one of the more common methods has been uncomfortable skin caliper testing. This method is considered unreliable for people with significant amounts of body fat, and can be generally unreliable, unless measured by someone with a large amount of experience.

Ultrasound can be used, however it is somewhat limited as it can only measure external fat, and does not provide internal fat data, critical to understanding overall health. DEXA scanning (using a form of x-ray) and air or water displacement are very accurate and reproducible, however they are expensive and require far more time.

We use Direct Segmental Multi-frequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (DSM-BIA). With both accuracy and reproducibility, our equipment measures body water, muscle mass, and body fat by passing multiple frequencies of current through your body. This allows an extremely accurate measurement of body fat comparable to DEXA scanning but at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time.

How accurate is it?

Our equipment is designed by General Electric Healthcare, the same makers of DEXA scanning equipment.  The DSM-BIA has a 98% correlation with DEXA scanning along and superior reproducibility. The faster, less expensive and more convenient testing equipment provides highly accurate full body analysis. The equipment is used by healthcare and medical professionals at hospitals, universities, and professional facilities such as Mayo Clinic, National Institute of Health and the Navy Seals.

Our medical-grade BIA devices are able to measure the entire body directly, and can be extremely accurate – even as accurate as the “Gold Standard” procedures, but without the complications that other types of equipment enatil. We use the most advanced BIA devices that are able to perform segmental analysis providing data about your body (trunk, Right/Left Arm, Right/Left Leg), including water, fat and muscle.

How often should the test be done?

To really differentiate between significant changes, every 4 weeks tends to be a good point to pick up body composition changes.