Principles of Body Fat Percentage Measurement

1.What You Should Know When Using This Unit

1.3 Principles of Body Fat Percentage Measurement

The OMRON BF400 estimates the body fat percentage by the Bioelectrical Impedance (BI) method.

What is the Bioelectrical Impedance method?

Muscles, blood vessels and bones are body tissues having a high water content that conduct electricity easily. Body fat is tissue that has little electric conductivity. The BF-400 sends an extremely weak electrical current of 50 kHz and less than 500 µA through your body to determine the amount of fat tissue.

This weak electrical current is not felt while operating the BF400.

The Bioelectrical Impedance Method safely combines the electric resistance with the distance of the electricity conducted. Correct posture and consistent measuring conditions need to be maintained for the best results.

How to estimate the body fat percentage.

DXA (Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry), has been the established method for accurate evaluation of body composition. OMRON has used research information from several hundred people using the DXA method to develop the formula by which the BF-400 works. The body fat mass and body fat percentage is calculated by a formula that includes five factors: electric resistance, height, weight, age and gender.

What is the DXA method?

The DXA method uses two different frequency X-Rays and rates of absorption of the body and determines the value based on the difference between the two.

People who may get erratic results

There are certain conditions, such as with dialysis patients, when significant differences may occur between the estimated and actual body fat values.

These differences may be related to consistently changing ratios of body fluid and/or body composition.

Also refer to: “Avoid Taking Measurements Under the Following Conditions” and “Cases When the Calculated Results May Differ from Actual Body Fat Percentages” in section 5.