If you are like me, you may have noticed that you look fine in the mirror or the number on your scale hasn’t gone up too much in the past few weeks. But why can’t the pant size I wore a month ago fit the same way it did then? Have the stores changed their sizing policies? This invariably leads to frustration and embarrassment.

Obesity is now identified as a serious health problem, and not only among children. In fact, it’s the fastest growing symptom among senior executives who spend most of their time at desks with little physical activity. Unless you’re a child or a senior executive, how do we know whether we are sitting above or below the “danger” level?

Standing on a scale and trending your body weight is a great start, but weight doesn’t have a direct correlation to body fat. Theoretically, even slender people might look fine in the mirror or on the scale, but their health can just as easily be at risk as someone who is visibly overweight. It’s what is inside that counts (and not in a good way); fat as a percentage of body weight is the true killer.

The way to properly measure body fat is with a body fat monitor. This device can tell us what we need to know.

A body fat monitor measures body fat without the help of a doctor or specialist. In very general terms, it analyzes the composition of our body by calculating biometric impedance. As sophisticated as it sounds, the device is actually quite easy to use.

The way the monitor works is that it sends an electrical signal through your body and measures the resistance faced by the signal. For example, a signal will pass quicker through body water than through body fat. People with high fat and muscle composition, then, would have high body water contents. The monitor measures total body water (TBW) and then figures out fat-free mass of the body. Next it will estimate your body fat by calculating the difference and taking body weight into account.

With so many monitors on the market today, how do you choose a body fat monitor? With prices ranging from under forty dollars to over seven hundred, the choices are plenty. Luckily, they are all easy to use for the most part, allowing even children to use their basic features.

For most of us, some of the most-worthwhile features to look for in a good body fat monitor are the ability for it to help you measure daily caloric intake and perform basic weight monitoring and trend calculations. As well, you should look for a model that will allow you to change the settings from adult to child, from athletic to non-athletic and so on. This will enable you to take more accurate readings as you make progress with your health and fitness goals.

You should also consider the device’s storage limits. A body fat monitor that saves readings and allows multiple users will keep track of your progress so that you don’t have to do it by hand. As people get busy (it happens to all of us) or less interested in the record keeping aspect of trending their progress (this also happens to all of us), the storage feature becomes increasingly important.

For those of us who feel the pinch whenever we go to buy new clothes or get decked out for a special occasion, a body fat monitor might not help us lose weight right then and there. But it definitely will help keep us on track with our regular training routine.

Tags: General Health

Share This