Descriptive Epidemiology Air Displacement Plethysmography: Validation in Overweight and Obese Subjects

Objective: Patients with moderate and severe obesity, be-cause of their physical size, often cannot be evaluated with conventional body composition measurement systems. The BOD POD air displacement plethysmography (ADP) sys-tem can accommodate a large body volume and may pro-vide an opportunity for measuring body density (Db) in obese subjects. Db can be used in two- or three-compart-ment body composition models for estimating total body fat in patients with severe obesity. The purpose of this study was to compare Db measured by ADP to Db measured by underwater weighing (UWW) in subjects ranging from nor-mal weight to severely obese