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