What is your true Body Mass Index?
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
Bod Pod
For years now nutritionists and health care providers have relied heavily on using a technique that determined a person’s body fat based on height and weight. This system applied to both men and women. Unfortunately for many this system is not entirely accurate. It is equally important to know what kind of weight people carry as well. Are they a lean 225 lb or a flabby 180 lb or someone who is very thin and weighs 100 lb.
Body density testing really identifies how much a person is made up of actual fat and how much is lean mass, which includes muscle and bone. Many pro football players, if tested using the standard method for BMI, would show up as being obese or extremely overweight. We know of course this is not the case. So how do you accurately measure a person’s body composition? Some have used skin calipers to measure subcutaneous fat on specific spot of the body. Others have used hydrostatic weighing which is very hard to do.
One new method seems to offer the most accurate measurement of body composition which uses air displacement plethysmograph. This system developed by Life Measurement, Inc. is proving to be extremely accurate and easy to do. They call it the Bod Pod.
Some of the things this new device can measure are:
Accurate whole-body density measurement
Accurate measure for Thoracic Gas Volume (TGV)
Accurate measurement on fat and fat-free mass, Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), and Total Energy Expenditures (TEE).
This test can be safely tested repeatably.
Is safe and non invasive.
Simple to use for the subject and operator, requires no special licenses.
It can be used with any subject type, including children, elderly, the obese and those with physical disabilities.
To learn more about Obesity and Body Mass Index Testing contact Puget Sound Surgical Center today.