Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability of three kinds of measurement methods used for evaluating the percentage of body fat. Five healthy male subjects (average age 29.0 ± 5.9 years) participated in this study. The subjects underwent ten repeated measurements for %FAT by underwater weighing (UWW), air displacement plethysmograph (ADP) and multiple-frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis (MFBIA). The reliability of the measurements was examined by using the coefficient of variation (CV) for the ten repeated measurements. There was no significant difference in mean values among the methods for both the measured %FAT and the between-trial CV for the ten repeated measurements. However, a significant positive correlation was found between the CV for MFBIA and the BMI of the subjects (r=0.993, p<0.001). In conclusion, the results suggest that the variation of measurements by MFBIA increases with degree of obesity. Thus, for MFBIA, further examination is needed of the physiques of such subjects.
