Reliability of a Common Digital Body Scale to Determine Body Composition
Fajar Awalia Yulianto (a*), Hilmi Sulaiman Rathomi (a), Eka Nurhayati (a), Eva Rianti Indrasari (b), R.Ganang Ibnusantosa (a)
(a) Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine Unisba
*fajar[at]unisba.ac.id
(b) Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine Unisba
Abstract
The escalating prevalence of metabolic diseases needs effective screening as a preventive strategy. Many tools are used to measure various metabolic parameters, both for research and clinical purposes. However, there is still doubt about the tools- reliability especially the digital type. This research aims to asses a Body Index Analyzer reliability that available in the market for calculating body composition consisted of body fat, visceral fat and skeletal muscle. There were 89 respondents that measured twice by two same brand and easy to find, digital body scales. The Bland-Altman plot was used to assess the body composition measurement reliability. Mean difference of body fat was 0.33 (95% CI -0.34 to 0.99), visceral fat was 0.53 (95% CI -0.37 to 1.45) and skeletal muscle was 0.01 (95% CI -0.11 to 0.13). Among those three parameters, the instrument has the most precise agreement in skeletal muscle measurement, although it still can be used to quantify body fat and visceral fat as well.
Keywords: bioimpedance analyzer, body composition, digital scale, reliability
Topic: Biomedical and Health Technology