Comparison Of Body Composition Techniques In Determining Body Fat Percentages In College Age Students

While the use of body composition analyzers can become a critical tool in breaking the continual weight loss/weight gain cycle in Americans, the accuracy of these analyzers at measuring body composition remains in question. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of various body composition techniques at determining body fat percentages (%BF). METHODS: Sixty males (mean ± SD) [age: 21.3 ± 1.7 yr., height: 178.1 ± 7.2 cm., mass: 81.9 ± 12.6 kg., body fat %: 14.6 ± 7.5 %] and thirty-nine females [age: 20.5 ± 0.9 yr., height: 166.0 ± 7.7 cm., mass: 63.5 ± 11.6 kg., body fat %: 26.6 ± 6.7%] from a moderately sized, midwestern university participated in the study. Height and weight were obtained followed by six different body composition assessment techniques: Underwater Weighing with predicted residual volume (UWW-PredRV), Underwater Weighing with estimated residual volume (UWW-ForcedVC), Air Displacement Plethysmography (ADP), Bioelectrical Impedance (BIA) using Tanita analyzer (Tanita), BIA using Omron lower body analyzer (OmronLB), and BIA using Omron lower body/upper body analyzer (OmronLBUB). RESULTS: Two-way ANOVA with repeated measures detected significant differences (p\u3c0.05) in the body fat percentage with post hoc-comparisons revealing significant differences among UWW-ForcedVC (17.7 ± 7.0), OmronLB (23.9 ± 5.5), and OmronLBUB (20.6 ± 5.7) as compared to ADP-PredLV (14.6 ± 7.5) for males. Statistically significant differences (p\u3c0.05) were detected by the ANOVA with post hoc-comparisons among Tanita (24.4 ± 7.6), OmronLB (31.6 ± 5.4), and OmronLBUB (31.0 ± 6.7) as compared to ADP-PredLV (26.6 ± 7.0) for females. CONCLUSIONS: Although some methods had a strong correlation to ADP (PredLV), significant differences were detected between the techniques. Therefore, some techniques should be used cautiously since they may yield higher than expected results and more investigation needs to be completed on the validity of consumer-grade BIA assessment techniques