Trish said:
> Hi all,I had my body fat measured yesterday at a health fair.  How
> accurate are those things anyway?  They took my weight, height, body
> frame,gender, age, exercise frequency, intensity and duration, then put
> this black disc thing on my bicep, after fingering it a bit, I guess to
> separate muscle from fat????  while holding my arm at a 90* angel.  Then
> this small printer printed out my results.  Said I was fair at 29.7% fat,
> was low on body water content which was at 58%.  said it should be at 70%
> and my lean body mass was 127 and body fat in pounds was 43.  She said I
> need to be at around 25%.  any takes on this?

Sounds like they used an electrical impedance device. These machines
are
highly variable.  They appear to be more reliable with overfat people
than
with super-lean people.  Body builders, who weigh more than average
people
for their height, but have very low body fat levels, often get highly
inaccurate readings from them.  A 63 year old super-man of a buy we
know,
had an electrical impedance device used to test his body fat when he
was
close to a competition and well under 10% body fat----hard, ripped,
striated, etc.  The device said 20% body fat----which was laughable!

If you have a high percentage of body at---because fat contains very
little
water---the smaller the portion of your body will be water.  If you
have a
lower body fat percentage, you will have more water in your body.
Muscle is
about 70% water....

If you were 20% body fat, for example, a larger percetage of your body
weight would be water.

By the way, many books suggest that women be 25-30% body fat, which is
still
very jiggly and saggy and defininitely overfat for an athletic person
or a
hunter-gatherer (too much fat can really slow you down).  I think 20%
body
fat is healthier and more attractive than 25%----no it's not emaciated
and
need not be boyish or pixie-ish, you'll still have curves, breasts,
etc
unless you were "gifted" with a flat chest and boyish hips (which
thank
heavens I was not!!! :-).  Even leaner and more muscular may be
desirable
for some....!

Rachel