Body Fat Monitors

 

Reviews
Omron HBF-306 Body Logic Body Fat Analyzer
Omron HBF-400 Body Fat Monitor
Tanita BC 533 Innerscan Body Composition Monitor
Tanita Innerscan BC-545 Segmental Body Composition Monitor
Tanita InnerScan Body Composition Monitor Series
Tanita Ironman Body Composition Monitor Series

Articles
Guide to Buying the Best Body Fat Monitor

Archive

Tanita's Great Leap Forward
Tanita has announced its new Innerscan BC-545 Segmental Body Composition Monitor, capable of giving individual analysis of five separate body areas - each arm, each leg and the body trunk.

According to Gizmag:

We’ve written about Tanita’s Innerscan previously, but the newly released Tanita BC-545 is such a leap forward in technology that it deserves more than just a mention....As the device includes a calendar function, it can track the changes over time for you, so you can create comparison graphs showing a history for each segment of the body and for each of the body composition readings, so that you can see your progress, day by day, week by week and month by month over a three year period.

Read more here.
March 3rd, 2007

Omron Measures Metabolism and Skeletal Muscle Mass Levels
Omron has announced its latest body fat monitor, the HBF-500. According to a company press release:

The HBF-500 is a consumer-friendly, easy-to-use scale which not only measures visceral fat, but resting metabolism and skeletal muscle mass levels--both helpful indicators for consumers to use when determining appropriate calorie intake and amount of exercise.

A person's resting metabolism, or amount of calories burned daily through normal activity, often decreases with age. However, building up skeletal muscle mass (muscles attached to bones and used to move the body) through exercise and other activity enables a person to maintain a higher resting metabolism and prevent weight gain.

The HBF-500 scale also takes more common measurements such as body fat percentage, weight and BMI to help users plan proactive steps toward better health.

More information is at the Omron website.
January 24th, 2007

Christmas Gifts
The Miami Herald recommends the Tanita InnerScan and Ironman scales:

Plug in your age, gender and height, then hop on the scales to learn your weight, body-fat percentage, body-water percentage, muscle mass, physique rating, visceral (abdominal) fat, bone mass, metabolic age and daily caloric intake (number of calories you can eat in a day to maintain current weight). The scales are simple to program and the info is relatively easy to understand with the accompanying guides. True, most of us don't need to know (or care about) our physique rating, but if you like to play the numbers game this is the scale for you.
December 6th, 2006

 

Tanita's BC-502 Body Fat Monitor
Several websites are featuring the Tanita BC-502 body fat monitor, including Akihabara News and Gizmodo, which reports:

What makes this unit special is that it can be connected to a PC using a USB cable so you can chart your progress in losing or gaining weight. Not only that, they have a bluetooth module that can sync up with your phone, so you won't have to bend down to read the scale (and for keeping track of your progress).

Once on the phone, the data can be sent to a website so your doctor can monitor your health.

And CalorieLab writes about the similarly-sounding Tanita BC-500-SV.

So far, the devices seem to be on sale in Japan only.
October 17th, 2006

Omron's Latest Body Fat Monitor
A press release introduces Omron's HBF-400 body fat monitor:

The HBF-400 displays body fat percentage measurements in 0.1% increments and has a weight capacity of up to 330 pounds. With a four-person profile memory plus guest mode, the monitor displays a person's previous reading for easy reference in tracking fat-loss progress. The HBF-400 will be available on local drugstore shelves and online and will retail for approximately $49.99.

I hope to write more on it soon.
September 18th, 2006

What Did You Expect for $8.50?
The Japan Times reports on a body-fat monitor with a problem - it couldn't actually measure body fat.

Handy Body Checker, sold by the Japanese Consumers Cooperative Union for around 800 yen to nearly 1,000 yen per unit, claims the percentage of a person's body fat can be measured in five seconds if users put their thumbs on the scale's metal plate.

But the scale was found to show estimated body-fat percentage figures only based on body data the person enters into the scale before using it -- height, weight and gender -- the officials said.

The co-op union has sold about 6,800 units at about 80 outlets across the nation since September. A Nagoya-based dealer had imported the product from China.

The problem surfaced when a user complained in June that the body-fat figure was always the same.

Though if you ask me, the price should have flashed a warning about the quality of the product - 1,000 yen is roughly equivalent to $8.50.
July 6th, 2006

Pay-As-You-Weigh Body Fat Monitor
Mars Electronics International, a leading provider of coin-in-the-slot devices, has announced a new body fat/body composition monitor, integrating bill-acceptance technology with the BodySpex monitor. The result is a monitor that can be placed in public kiosks, allowing easy access to members of the public wishing to pay a few dollars to check their body composition.
June 20th, 2006

New Body Fat Monitor
Akihabara News reports on the Tanita BC-502 body fat monitor, which is equipped with a Bluetooth module that can transmit data to a mobile phone and then to a website that can be checked by a doctor. It's not on Tanita's US website, and there's no indication that it is to be released anytime soon outside Japan.
May 22nd, 2006

Bathroom Scales Go High-Tech
Bathroom scales go high-tech, according to an article on the MSNBC website. It looks at regular bathroom scales, and also at body fat monitors. About the former it notes:

Most digital scales rely on an array of electronic sensors to calculate weight rather than the spring loaded mechanisms of their predecessors. As such, their readings are considered more precise and require less knob-fiddling adjustments to keep them true.

Of course, the traditional spring-loaded styles that read weight like a speedometer going zero to @#$%! in a few blinks of the eye are still around. And unlike their digital cousins, no batteries are required. Several manufactures make them and many are updated with a trendy, retro-styled look.

For example, the Analog Dial Scale from Homedics ($25) comes with an easy-to-read speedometer dial, a 300 pound weight capacity, and color choice of black and white or all white. Basic scales in the $10-$15 price point include the Thinner Compact Scale and the Taylor Basic Analog Scale.

About body fat monitors, it says:

The digital Innerscan and Ironman lines from Tanita ($70 to $130) come packed with features that do everything from sending a low-level electric current through the body in order to measure body fat percentage and hydration levels to allowing up to four individual users to track their progress over time.

Some models, such as the glass-and-stainless BC-533 ($120), also analyze muscle mass, bone mass and daily caloric intake, gauge stomach fat and provide a "physique" rating based on body type.

Tanita claims these additional measurements can be important to maintaining overall health and monitoring the effects of a diet and exercise plan. For example, a stand-alone weight reading does not distinguish muscle from fat. Too much fat can be a warning sign of serious medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.

Cathy Nonas, a dietician and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association in New York, cautioned that before people opt for these features, they should know how they intend to use the information. Do they really need to know their percent body fat on a regular basis? "If so, then by all means, spend the extra money," she said.
February 17th, 2006
 

Sold Out
I write in this website about body fat monitors, but I don't own one. A Tanita Innerscan Body Composition Monitor that costs $99.99 at Amazon.com goes for $300 in Australia (A$399.95). So I went to my local Aldi supermarket yesterday after they advertised that one of their weekly specials - on sale from yesterday - was a body fat monitor for just A$29.95 ($22.50). I arrived at the store at around 6:00pm. Already they were sold out.
January 13th, 2006

Affordable Luxuries
Forbes magazine has published a list of “affordable luxuries” – goods or services costing less than $200 – for getting fit. According to the report:

You don't need to be wealthy to get healthy. In an age where gym memberships cost hundreds of dollars per year, personal trainers around $100 an hour and state-of-the-art exercise equipment in the thousands, it might strike some readers as unrealistic that $200 will have much impact. Allow us to demure. [The writer presumably means “demur”.]

Among the items selected:

Polar F11 heart rate monitor -

…which not only monitors heart rates but also creates its own workout program that tells wearers how much they need to exercise to reach their goals. A suntanned personal trainer with rock-hard abs can do the same thing, but the F11 only costs $159.

Tanita BC533 body composition monitor -

To help keep track of all that weight you are losing, there are few bigger motivators than a scale, and few scales are as high-tech--and affordable--as the Tanita BC553 Body Composition Monitor, which has a list price of around $120. It not only tells you your weight but also body fat, body water percentage, bone mass, basal metabolic rate, metabolic age and muscle mass.

January 5^th, 2006

 

A Good Little Motivator – Tanita Ironman InnerScan Body Composition Monitor

At the xtri.com triathlon site, Mark Steckel reviews the Tanita Ironman InnerScan body composition monitor.

His conclusions:

I loved the ability of this scale to measure body fat. And I'm not too concerned if it's 100% accurate or not, because I'm just interested in trends. Off-season versus racing form, that kind of thing. For me, the scale could become a good little motivator that helped keep me from getting too far 'off-season' over the holidays. But that's also my one concern about a monitor like this. I'd hate to see someone with an eating disorder use it as a tool which only weakened their self image. The monitor comes with information about what healthy body fat levels are for men and women and I hope that would serve to educate everyone that certain levels of fat in the body are necessary for good health.

…Overall, this is a great scale that fills a void in the home market. And when one considers that prices range from US$99.99 to $129.99, they are very reasonably priced compared to their non-body fat monitoring cousins.

December 9^th, 2005

Review of Omron Body Fat Tracker

It’s not easy to find comprehensive and objective reviews of personal health monitors. So it is good to read an excellent review of the Omron HPF 306 body fat tracker, which I previewed a few days ago. The review is by Charlie White at the Digital Toys website.

He concludes:

One of our colleagues here at the Midwest Test Facility is built like a model and rail-thin, and it measured her percentage of body fat and BMI at an identical percentage of 18.5%. Others of us who are not so fortunate ranged from 25 to 33%. It was also interesting to note that various times of the day yielded different readings, where early in the morning a reading of 23.7% turns to a 25.2% reading late in the afternoon. According to the documentation, this is normal because different levels of fluid fluctuate during the day.

We found the Omron Body Fat Analyzer to be an accurate instrument, and easy and fun to use as well. It’s simple to set up, and even though it doesn’t store its readings, it stores your personal data so you won’t need to enter it each time you use it, and offers consistent results. The price is right, and it’s helping us keep an eye on our overall personal health. Highly recommended. 9.5 out of 10 stars.

Read the whole review.

October 20^th, 2005

Tanita BF680W Duo Scale Plus Body Fat Monitor with Athletic Mode and Body Water

This Tanita product – its name is a real mouthful – is another of Amazon’s best-selling personal health monitors. Here’s Amazon’s product description:

Features:

• 0.2-pound graduations
   
• 2.25-inch, 2-line display shows weight and body fat percentage
   
• Determines weight and estimates body fat and body water with safe, low-level electrical pulse
   
• Stores data for two different people
   
• 0.1% body fat graduations

A larger image is here. Tanita’s website contains a lengthy discussion of the health benefits of monitoring body water percentage. A long article, “Understanding Body Fat Analysis,” is here.

October 18^th, 2005

Tanita’s New Body Composition Monitors

Some interesting information at CalorieLab Calorie Counter News on Tanita’s body composition monitors:

Some scales sold in Japan by Tanita and others incorporate detachable hand-held electrodes that allow electrical signals to be sent through the arms as well as the legs. Tanita claims, however, that its InnerScan technology is accurate with only foot electrodes. The latest versions of Tanita’s scales marketed to women in Japan include a “female diet mode” to advise women when they should put the most effort into their diet. According to Tanita, when estrogen levels are rising, a woman’s mood will be more conducive to sticking with exercise and diet.

October 17^th, 2005
 

Omron HPF 306 Body Fat Tracker

The body fat tracker is another of Omron’s popular personal health monitor products, and another that is high on the Amazon best-seller list.

Here are the product specifications from Amazon:

• Two modes for accurate results for athletes and non-athletes
• Measurement results in 7 seconds for both Bioelectrical Impedance Method and BMI (Body Mass Index) calculation
• Save time with 9 person profile memory
• 1 year warranty

This device measures your body fat with a gentle, micro-electrical current (you won't feel it). Then, an onboard computer calculates the speed of the current as it travels through your body tissues. Since fat tissues have little or no electrical conductivity, the computer then digitally calculates the results provides an accurate display of your body fat percentage and the weight of your body's fat--all in just seven seconds! The package includes everything you'll need to start today, plus nine personal profile memories.

A larger image is here. The Omron website contains a FAQ page.

October 17^th, 2005

 

Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor

Tanita’s highly-popular body composition and body fat monitors occupy several places on Amazon’s list of the best-selling electronic health monitors. Here are the product specifications from the Amazon site for the BC533 (and a larger picture is here):

Using BIA technology which is widely used in the medical field, the scale is a unique and highly accurate body composition monitor. This product not only measures weight and body fat, it also tells you your body water %, muscle mass, bone mass, daily caloric intake, metabolic age, visceral fat and rates your physique! The Body Water % is the total amount of fluid in the body expressed as a percentage of total weight. The muscle mass is the amount of muscle in your body. The Bone Mass is the weight of your bone in your body. The Metabolic Age compares your Basal Metabolic Rate to the average age associated with that level of metabolism. The Visceral Fat is the fat in the abdominal cavity (stomach), surrounding the vital organs. The Physique Rating is a rating of your body type; 1-9.

In May this year the monitor got a glowing review from US News & World Report:

At last, a scale that people can't wait to step on. The $120 InnerScan from Tanita not only reveals your weight and body fat percentage but goes on to calculate visceral fat (the amount around the organs), bone mass, metabolic age (the average age associated with your metabolism), a physique rating, and an estimate of daily calories to maintain your current state. If you're self-conscious, take heart: At least it doesn't laugh at you.

The bathroom box has been growing smarter over the past decade, thanks to a doctor's office technology called bioelectrical impedance analysis. If you stand barefoot on one of the contraptions, small electrical currents you can't feel run through your body. It takes longer for the signals to get through fat than muscle, so based on its readings, the scale--dubbed a body-composition monitor--can read what's under your skin. Provided with facts like age, height, and gender, they can figure out even more.

October 14^th, 2005