Fat Scales

[yardrock]

I was in a local sporting goods store this weekend and saw a scale that not only gave your body weight but also your body fat percentage. Almost bought it for $40. The reason I did not was I could not find the magin for error posted anywhere on the box. Also in small print it said that this scale should not be used by athletes. Athletes was described as any ony with a resting heart rate of less than 60bpm. Or some one engaged in riroros activity 2 or more times a week. It said that this scale was programed for the sedintery person and that ther was another model designed to be used by athletes. This store did not cayyr that model. Has anyone used these types of scales and how do they work? How accurate?

 

[A50#]

I'm not real sure how accurate they are. I have a scale made by Tenita that measures weight and BF%. It has two settings, one for a sedentary person, and one for an athlete.

 

[Ethan James]

I had one and they suck. It was a digital scale that you program your age and height into it. Then you put your feet on these electrodes and it shoots some sort of electrical impulse through your body to determine your body fat. I have about 15% and it told me I was 29%. That's a big margin of error...

 

[drgoodbody]

They don't work well if you are heavily muscled for your height/weight. I also have a tanita, and it never says less than 20% BF for me, and I know (calipers) that I'm somewhere between 10-15% max. Save your money and get some quality calipers and learn how to measure with them.

DrG

 

[BigBoyJ]

Yep, they're pieces of shit. Even the ones that are programmed for athletes aren't programmed for bodybuilders. We're a whole different breed.

 

[Jarconis]

yeah, they are crap, my Tanita still says im 19.6 % bf...

 

[mike man]

YEP

I had one and they suck. It was a digital scale that you program your age and height into it. Then you put your feet on these electrodes and it shoots some sort of electrical impulse through your body to determine your body fat. I have about 15% and it told me I was 29%. That's a big margin of error...

Same thing happened to me when I used a bf scale.
I went ahead and paid 250$ for some Lange skin fold calipers instead.
I don't even think the scale was right from day to day! lol.

 

[Qwert]

I have a tanita scale that is supposed to be for atheltes. It SUCKS. It always reads a good 10% higher than it should. I'm always 20%+, which is odd since I can kinda see my abs. The digitalweight read out is ok, but the fat % part is way off.