Body Composition

I have a electrical impedence body fat scale (tanita) that I like very much. It has one settings for athlete and adult. Unfortunately, I fall somewhere in between so neither is quite accurate. I still like it for reference but once and a while I like to get a real body fat test.

The Wellness Center on campus has a BodPod which is like a water displacement test but it uses air instead of water. It is pretty cool. I will spare you the rant about my difficulties trying to schedule the test with the Wellness Center. Anyway my percent fat was 27.9%. My scale was 31% on the same morning. Lean mass is 105.938 lbs.

I won't spare the rant on the BMI. Many BMI calculators merely give a number and say you are overweight. The BMI is not meant for individual assessment and classifies healthy muscular people as overweight. The "healthy range" for my height according to the BMI calculator is 107-141 lbs. At a 141 lbs I am about 25% body fat - but at 107 lbs, I am 1% body fat. Hardly healthy. In fact women should not be under 15% or, for me, 124.6 lbs. Imagine the damage that could be done to someone suseptable to an eating disorder with this garbage!