Body Fat Scales

jlcl119

I picked up a Perfect Fitness Body Fat scale on the cheap at Target yesterday. I know they're not super accurate, but I was wondering what the general error margin on these are.
I mostly want it to keep track of increases and decreases, so I guess the actual number itself is irrelevant for my purposes, but I'm curious.

So, I'm a 5'3" 122lb 28-year-old female. My measurements are 36(28" ribcage, 36 is overbust)x26x37, if that's useful. My new toy has me at 20% Body Fat and ~60% Total Body Water. Oh, it also has a calorie recommendation of 2,100/day to maintain which is cool to me.

So, any way to guess how close to true that may be? Or no way to tell?

Alphastate

They can be largely inaccurate, with a margin or error ranging from +/- 3-15%. The key with it is exactly what you said, tracking the increase or decrease. You just want to make sure you're consistent when measuring. Same time of day, roughly the same food intake each time you measure, amount of water intake (this can be a biggie, especially on high sodium days), etc.

SkinnyMozza

They have a huge degree of error but are better than nothing.

I'm a nerding scientist with a passion for graphing things ... hahahah

So I check mine all the time (like every other day - cant help it) and graph the results... the numbers vary by a few percent... however over the period of a week you can draw an average line through them... and thats pretty much what you are. Then over the course of a few weeks you can see the line gradually going down even though every second day or so it looks like the numbers go up or down (like who really puts on 3% body fat over night)

So overall... I like it... the average is accurate. :flowerforyou:

scottb81

I find mine to be nearly useless. In normal mode it usually gives me 14 to 16%. In athlete mode it gives me 1 to 4%. Calipers give me 10 to 12%. Tape measures give me all sorts of different answers depending on whose formula I use.