Body Composition Monitor

[Aquarius83]

Hi,

does anyone know where in Bangkok i could find a good quality Body Composition Monitor?

For example from Omron or some other well known brand.

Or are the prices for the good quality ones sky high in here and would be wiser to order from internet?

[tropo]

I bought a quality hand held Omron body composition meter a few years ago. It's totally useless for muscular people - it gives me readings of around 5 - 8% and sometimes just error.

A waste of money.

[ravip]

I hope this helps

Omron Electronics Co Ltd

Rasa Tower 2 16th Floor

555 Phaholyothin Road

Chatuchak, Bangkok, Thailand

Tel: (66-2) 937 0500

Fax: (66-2) 937 0501

CRM Call Centre: (66-2) 942 6700

[tropo]

I hope this helps

Omron Electronics Co Ltd

Rasa Tower 2 16th Floor

555 Phaholyothin Road

Chatuchak, Bangkok, Thailand

Tel: (66-2) 937 0500

Fax: (66-2) 937 0501

CRM Call Centre: (66-2) 942 6700

If you really want to buy a gadget which is next to worthless, you can get them at Fascino as well as most other big pharmacies.

[ravip]

I ain't no medical professional or health expert.

But as with all equipment we buy, there is a certain amount of tolerances the user should be aware of. Condemning a piece of any equipment across the board should be well thought of - but not for the simple reason that a certain piece of equipment malfunctioned.

As with any test or other equipment, the user should be very familiar with the operation and the limits of his equipment. If not, it really would be useless.

For example, some

body fat analysers uses bioelectrical impedance to measure your body fat versus lean body weight. You grip this unit and it sends a mild electrical current through your hands to do the measurement. You must input your gender, age and weight for it to calculate body fat percentage and weight of body fat and body mass index (BMI).

The results of these machines will depend on various parameters like the 'tightness' of your grip, the food you have ingested, dehydration, alcohol, etc. Hence you should read the manual thoroughly and must be consistent in when you measure to get good readings.

And of course when you use it as a guide to your health program, it would be better to have one rather than not.

This of course is my humble opinion.

Some reviews for an example...

http://reviews.walmart.com/1336/3342463/omron-portable-body-fat-analyzer-model-hbf-306-reviews/reviews.htm

[tropo]

I ain't no medical professional or health expert.

But as with all equipment we buy, there is a certain amount of tolerances the user should be aware of. Condemning a piece of any equipment across the board should be well thought of - but not for the simple reason that a certain piece of equipment malfunctioned.

As with any test or other equipment, the user should be very familiar with the operation and the limits of his equipment. If not, it really would be useless.

For example, some

body fat analysers uses bioelectrical impedance to measure your body fat versus lean body weight. You grip this unit and it sends a mild electrical current through your hands to do the measurement. You must input your gender, age and weight for it to calculate body fat percentage and weight of body fat and body mass index (BMI).

The results of these machines will depend on various parameters like the 'tightness' of your grip, the food you have ingested, dehydration, alcohol, etc. Hence you should read the manual thoroughly and must be consistent in when you measure to get good readings.

And of course when you use it as a guide to your health program, it would be better to have one rather than not.

This of course is my humble opinion.

Some reviews for an example...

http://reviews.walma...ews/reviews.htm

It sounds like you're rep.

Trust me, I can grip it as hard or soft as I like. I can eat anything and everything and drink lots or dehydrate myself. The device NEVER gives a "good" reading. In fact the reading is about 10% low. Yes, I read the manual and know exactly how to use it.

If you're a person with close to "normal" percentages of bodyfat it may give you a sensible reading. If you're athletic and carry more than the "normal" amount of muscle, the device is a waste of money. BMI readings are always meaningless and I can't believe anyone actually uses them.

Some of the reviewers claim the result is accurate. How would the ascertain that? I can understand that if the device gives them a very result they may be very pleased with it.

If you'd like to purchase this from me, pm me I'll give you a good price.

Edited May 7, 2012 by tropo

[Aquarius83]

Yeah i know that these can almost never be really accurate. However i think i can follow my progress pretty well if

take the measurements every time at the morning before i have eat, drink, or exercise at all.

I'm interested in a scale like this: http://www.omron-hea.../HBF-508-E.html

I did tried the Hand held meter many times when i was younger and the difference wasn't that big, i think i showed like 2-3% less than

with this:

Obviously i didn't do that by myself.

And it is probably true that the more you have muscle, the more unreliable these monitor readings get.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Aquarius83

[tropo]

And it is probably true that the more you have muscle, the more unreliable these monitor readings get.

"probably"?. It's definite.

We went into bodyfat measurements in detail on the "I'm too fat forum", so I'm not going to repeat it all here, but the pinch callipers can become very inaccurate as you get older. On me they read about 6% low... Visceral fat is the culprit. The bigger your belly proportional to your overall body size, the less accurate the readings will be.

Edited May 7, 2012 by tropo

[tropo]

I'm interested in a scale like this: http://www.omron-hea.../HBF-508-E.html

Sorry, I overlooked this link you provided. These are a similar type of scale to the one at my gym. They require that you input your body type with a choice between "normal" and "athletic", whatever that means. On these scales muscular people read obese, the opposite of the Omron hand held device.

Unfortunately these devices are nothing more than cheap toys. They only measure through the feet or hands. If you want a system that really works, you need to look for something like this:

http://inbody.gehealthcare.com/products/inbody-230

I've used this device at a university and compared the results directly, within the hour, to results of a DEXA scan and a hydrostatic weighing. There was only a 1% difference in results. You can see the sort of money ($4750) you need to pay for something which really works. You do not have to input your body type on this device.

[glbv]

Ill agree 100% with tropo, ANY scale that uses the principal of sending electric through your body and measuring response time (what all these do) are utter shit. At this point i get readings from anywhere to 3% to 20% to erroring. Now with standard calipers and though visual comparison, im roughly 10%. If you want to through your money out the door, ill send you my address.

[ravip]

I ain't no medical professional or health expert.

But as with all equipment we buy, there is a certain amount of tolerances the user should be aware of. Condemning a piece of any equipment across the board should be well thought of - but not for the simple reason that a certain piece of equipment malfunctioned.

As with any test or other equipment, the user should be very familiar with the operation and the limits of his equipment. If not, it really would be useless.

For example, some

body fat analysers uses bioelectrical impedance to measure your body fat versus lean body weight. You grip this unit and it sends a mild electrical current through your hands to do the measurement. You must input your gender, age and weight for it to calculate body fat percentage and weight of body fat and body mass index (BMI).

The results of these machines will depend on various parameters like the 'tightness' of your grip, the food you have ingested, dehydration, alcohol, etc. Hence you should read the manual thoroughly and must be consistent in when you measure to get good readings.

And of course when you use it as a guide to your health program, it would be better to have one rather than not.

This of course is my humble opinion.

Some reviews for an example...

http://reviews.walma...ews/reviews.htm

It sounds like you're rep.

Trust me, I can grip it as hard or soft as I like. I can eat anything and everything and drink lots or dehydrate myself. The device NEVER gives a "good" reading. In fact the reading is about 10% low. Yes, I read the manual and know exactly how to use it.

If you're a person with close to "normal" percentages of bodyfat it may give you a sensible reading. If you're athletic and carry more than the "normal" amount of muscle, the device is a waste of money. BMI readings are always meaningless and I can't believe anyone actually uses them.

Some of the reviewers claim the result is accurate. How would the ascertain that? I can understand that if the device gives them a very result they may be very pleased with it.

If you'd like to purchase this from me, pm me I'll give you a good price.

Definitely not - I am NOT a rep or have any interests in Omron!

I quoted Omron in my example because it was a well known brand.

However, I have copied some of these comments to 'Omron' and asked for their views - lets wait and see what their explanation is.

Interesting...

[Neha]

Yeah i know that these can almost never be really accurate. However i think i can follow my progress pretty well if

take the measurements every time at the morning before i have eat, drink, or exercise at all.

I'm interested in a scale like this: http://www.omron-hea.../HBF-508-E.html

I did tried the Hand held meter many times when i was younger and the difference wasn't that big, i think i showed like 2-3% less than

with this:

Obviously i didn't do that by myself.

And it is probably true that the more you have muscle, the more unreliable these monitor readings get.

Calipers (the device in the image above) are useful to track progress only. That is, if you are doing strength training and increasing muscle mass or losing fat, you can track to see that you are actually making progress - say you go from 15% to 12% according to the calipers, you will know that you are on the right track. However, you cannot trust that number to be a precise number of your bodyfat percent even using a caliper.

I agree with the other posters that the biolelectric scales are pretty worthless. The one I would consider is underwater weighing to get a true reading (look it up), but it can be expensive.

The mirror, fitting of clothes, body measurements are also good indicators of progress. Regular scale weight of course won't give you the whole picture.

[tropo]

Ill agree 100% with tropo, ANY scale that uses the principal of sending electric through your body and measuring response time (what all these do) are utter shit. At this point i get readings from anywhere to 3% to 20% to erroring. Now with standard calipers and though visual comparison, im roughly 10%. If you want to through your money out the door, ill send you my address.

Thanks for the confirmation - perhaps now he will believe it. I just had a reading of 6.8% on mine - that's probably double my true fat percentage.

[tropo]

I agree with the other posters that the biolelectric scales are pretty worthless. The one I would consider is underwater weighing to get a true reading (look it up), but it can be expensive.

I've covered this extensively on another thread, but a DEXA bodyscan is probably better as it doesn't require the person to exhale air which is quite difficult sitting on a little chair with weights over your legs while being dunked in water. They normally take 3 readings and average them out - each reading can easily vary by 1% or more depending on how much air you manage to exhale. Of course the more air left in your lungs, the higher the bodyfat reading will be.

Now you say it's expensive. Does that mean you know somewhere in Thailand where it can be done? I get the feeling it's old technology and being phased out by computer scanning systems like DEXA. The InBody 230 device I used (as explained above) was very close to my DEXA scan and hydrostatic weighing result.

Edited May 8, 2012 by tropo

[glbv]

Ive done bod pods which are the underwater tanks that measure you, mine read 20% and at the time i was easily 13-14%. Id still love to do a DEXA scan and ill be going to NY in july going to go find one and give it a whirl.

[Neha]

I agree with the other posters that the biolelectric scales are pretty worthless. The one I would consider is underwater weighing to get a true reading (look it up), but it can be expensive.

I've covered this extensively on another thread, but a DEXA bodyscan is probably better as it doesn't require the person to exhale air which is quite difficult sitting on a little chair with weights over your legs while being dunked in water. They normally take 3 readings and average them out - each reading can easily vary by 1% or more depending on how much air you manage to exhale. Of course the more air left in your lungs, the higher the bodyfat reading will be.

Now you say it's expensive. Does that mean you know somewhere in Thailand where it can be done? I get the feeling it's old technology and being phased out by computer scanning systems like DEXA. The InBody 230 device I used (as explained above) was very close to my DEXA scan and hydrostatic weighing result.

I must have missed your post on the other thread. After reading this, I looked up info on the DEXA pretty extensively. I actually didn't know much about it. We learn something new everyday eh? Thanks for that! You are right, the DEXA does seem to be the latest and best (most precise) technology to measure bodyfat percent. I understand your complaint with the bodpod but I figured that was the "closest" one could get to the correct number. I was wrong of course.

Still at the end of the day, it seems like bodyfat percentage is an arbitrary "ego number". It would also look different on different people and depend on how much muscle they have. Here is a great article about it: http://www.leighpeel...and-percentages

I'm not actually aware of any place in Thailand, but I do travel often and I was referring to prices elsewhere. I figured it would be same for LOS if it was available of course.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Neha

[tropo]

I must have missed your post on the other thread. After reading this, I looked up info on the DEXA pretty extensively. I actually didn't know much about it. We learn something new everyday eh? Thanks for that! You are right, the DEXA does seem to be the latest and best (most precise) technology to measure bodyfat percent. I understand your complaint with the bodpod but I figured that was the "closest" one could get to the correct number. I was wrong of course.

Still at the end of the day, it seems like bodyfat percentage is an arbitrary "ego number". It would also look different on different people and depend on how much muscle they have. Here is a great article about it: http://www.leighpeel...and-percentages

I'm not actually aware of any place in Thailand, but I do travel often and I was referring to prices elsewhere. I figured it would be same for LOS if it was available of course.

\

(That was a good link you provided. Good to see DEXA scan mentioned in there)

I don't know about a "bodpod" (I'll look into that). I had my hydrostatic weighing done in a huge tank at the Otago University in NZ.

Bodyfat percentages are certainly not arbitrary when you're getting long in the tooth. True readings such as what you see on a DEXA scan will tell you how much fat you're carrying in the trunk - i.e. visceral fat accumulating around the internal organs. This builds up as we age and isn't visible around the muscles. This can be an indication of insulin resistance or diabetes.

The people in the photos on your link are younger people without much belly fat so we're looking mainly at sub-cutaneous fat. As usual, the older generation is totally bypassed in this discussion.

Edited May 10, 2012 by tropo