Health O' Meter Scale, Body Fat % and Muscle Mass %?

halloweengal

I bought this scale https://www.walmart.com/ip/Health-O-Meter-Scale-Weight-and-Body-Fat-Digital-Bathroom-Scale-with-DCI-Technology/51235438

How accurate do you feel the measurements are? Or are they a rough estimate? It's saying I have 4 pounds of bone?

AnnPT77

Rough estimate. If you're trying to achieve some goal (increased muscle mass, reduced fat, that sort of thing) then the long term trend in readings might be helpful, very roughly: The general overall direction the trend heads may be realistic. The absolute value is probably suspect, without separate confirmation.

I have a similar scale. I don't pay it a lot of mind, but have considered its body fat % in the context of other very rough (i.e., unreliable) methods like online tape-measurement-based fat estimation calculators, and comparison of visual appearance to photos of other women at various BF%.

Day to day variations in the scale's % estimates are pretty random. Body fat changes are pretty slow, gradual. Muscle mass changes are even slower and more gradual. It's not IMO an instant gratification enterprise, and the instant readings not very helpful as a short-term guide.

Remember the math, if you're working on multiple fronts, such as lifting heavy to gain muscle long term plus eating at maintenance or a tiny bit below to gradually lose fat alongside that. You'd probably want to apply the percentage to the then-current bodyweights to establish your long term trend lines, not just look at the percentages. (I put my daily weigh-in data in Libra trending app, have occasionally downloaded it to spreadsheets to look at the results in pounds rather than percents, out of simple curiosity.)

It looks like that particular scale estimates calorie intake needs. That seems unlikely to be any more (or less) accurate than any sound, research-based online calculator that uses similar input values.

halloweengal

Thank you, so much! Would you mind if I sent you some photos of the readings? They seem very off!

AnnPT77

halloweengal wrote: »

Thank you, so much! Would you mind if I sent you some photos of the readings? They seem very off!

You can friend request me and send a PM after I accept, or post photos here. Posting photos here might give you more feedback from others. You're just getting my opinions, and I'm not claiming any special expertise in this area, just some personal experience. There are others who are much more knowledgeable, somewhere here in MFP-world, I assume.

halloweengal

Took these earlier, they don't make any sense to me.

AnnPT77

Keep in mind that all this is doing is sending an imperceptible electrical current into your feet, and measuring the electricity that cycles back after transiting your body (maybe parts of your body!). Presumably, your scale asked you to put in some "user profile" information as part of its set-up, like age and height, maybe something about athleticism or activity, etc.

There's what amounts to a little computer program/app in the scale that takes your profile info, and the electrical measurements, and uses statistical results from large-scale research studies to estimate (guess) your body composition.

There are many points in that process that could introduce a meaningful amount of error, for instance, the electrical measurements are sensitive to water retention in the body in ways that can affect the results.

I don't know how tall you are or how much you weigh, but 80 pounds wouldn't IMO be an extremely unusual muscle mass for an average-sized woman who doesn't have an especially athletic (strength-oriented) background, but I'm no expert.

A quick Google search brings up various sources saying that on average a human skeleton is around 14-15% of body weight, but obviously what percent of a specific person's current weight it actually is would depend highly on whether they have fat beyond whatever was used to estimate that average. Various sites say an average woman's skeleton would be somewhere in the 20s of pounds. I have no way to validate that. However, if it's correct, 4.2 pounds of bone would be improbable.

BMI is simply the ratio of weight and height, so if you told the scale your height, and it just measured your weight, the BMI number is reliable. BMI 23.3 would be well within the normal body weight range as estimated via BMI, though toward the upper end (normal range is 18.5-24.9). BMI is mainly a screener metric, or useful in comparing populations (of many people) though, not definitive in individual cases. One can have excess body weight within the normal range, or a healthy weight above or below it, if one has non-average amounts of muscle, among other possible reasons for difference from statistical norms.

halloweengal

If I lose one point I'll be at 22 BMI. Would that make me not in the "Upper End" anymore? Not sure if it's 80 pounds or 80%. I'm 4'10".

AnnPT77

halloweengal wrote: »

If I lose one point I'll be at 22 BMI. Would that make me not in the "Upper End" anymore? Not sure if it's 80 pounds or 80%. I'm 4'10".

80% muscle is pretty much impossible, for a healthy woman. (Like I said, skeleton's likely maybe 14-15%-ish, so maybe 85% left to be muscle+fat. For adult women, something in the teens percents of body fat would be the minimum for continuing good health (below that unlikely to be healthy!), and that low only reasonable for the *very* muscular. Most slim women who aren't bodybuilders are more likely in the upper teens percent body fat, and more usually going to in the 20s percents if healthy, perhaps even above depending other details.

Those numbers are all very approximate, but if you say 15% skeleton + 15% very ultra-low minimum body fat + 80% muscle would be 110% of a body, and that's not possible.

Seems like 80 pounds would be pretty high muscle mass, for someone of your petite height. Like I said in the first place, you can't really rely on these scales to give you reasonable estimates of body composition (i.e., fat vs. muscle vs. bones).

There's nothing wrong with being BMI 23.3 in the abstract. If you're concerned, you should be talking with your doctor about what's a healthy weight for you. Most women have *some* healthy weight in the normal BMI range, but depending on build, a woman can also have a healthy weight at a higher BMI, above 24. (Few would be healthy below BMI 18.5.)

For example, someone with widely spaced hip bones probably needs to fall higher in the BMI range, ditto for a woman with larger breasts, and there are other things that matter. For most women, even with a narrower build, 23.3 BMI would be a healthy weight. Heck, I'm narrower in hips, no breasts at all (post-mastectomies), and BMI 23.3 was a healthy weight for me. Your doctor would be the right person to consult.

Personal preferences matter, too: Some women prefer to look curvier, and that's usually not going to happen at the lower end of the normal BMI range, unless body type is quite, quite unusual.

BMI is not definitive for an individual person.
BMI is not definitive for an individual person.
Really. It's not.

I think you're reading too much into this, things you can't really get out of it.