Body Fat Tester

Were with parents in a mall last few months. While mum was finding for her nutritional supplements in a pharmacy, I was attracted by this "bathroom weighing scale".



It looks so much complicated than the conventional ones (sounds alot more lag-behind). The staff was drawn to my curiosity and she approached me telling that I could actually have a try. Since it's free, so why not?

I was instructed to stand on the weighing scale with both out-stretched hands holding the handlebar that's connected by a cable-like string to the scale like this:



Remained in the post for few seconds while the staff acquired my weight, height and age.

I don't know what and how she's calculating. She then passed me a paper which contains the readings of my body fat and start explaining to me.



I knew I'd be in the category of underweight in BMI, so no big deal. Slightly low in the metabolism rate, and surprisingly my body only ages 18 which is 7 years younger than my actual age ;) wink. And through the machine, it found that my arms have more subcutaneous fat than it suppose to have, which I don't find it's correct.



As for my body fat percentage and visceral fat level, I got both positive figures (that's very good :D).

When I'd done with the readings, I waved my parents over to let it a go. The readings weren't find to be so accurate somehow.

I was so interested to know how does the machine actually identifies how much fat lies under our skin. Maybe through some ray that can scan through your body, or through the way we stand which enables the machine to find which part of you contributes the most pressure to the body and etc.

Like usual, I googled it. And found that to be precised, it actually is a body fat scale or body composition monitor scale. And that is not the normal handlebar but a grip electrodes. Can't find how the exact scale model really functions. But after glancing through some articles, i got some rough idea.

It actually estimated the fat level by passing the low intensity electric current through your body. Obviously the electric current can easily pass through lean muscle as compared to fat, thus after performing some preset calculations, body composition can be obtained based on the speed at which the signal passes through.



But I wonder why the results didn't turn out right when the theory is sound.