A COMPARATIVE STUDY FOR EVALUATING ERRORS IN BODY COMPOSITION ESTIMATES USING BIOELETRIC IMPEDANCE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Body-composition is widely used to evaluate nutritional status in healthy and various disease conditions. Body-composition assessment has many clinical uses, such as assessing disease progression or treatment efficacy. It is necessary now to set clear and accurate techniques for the measuring of body-composition. Two relatively new methods for assessing body-composition are Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) and the Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA).

The study of body composition seeks to divide and estimate body weight into basic compartments. Body composition models are classified by the number of compartments that are measured. In general, the more compartments measured the greater the prediction accuracy. The two-compartment model divides the body mass into fat mass (FM) and fat­ free mass (FFM). Three- and four-compartment models subdivide FFM into additional categories like total body water (TBW), fat free dry mass, and bone mineral mass. In each model, total body mass is the sum of each compartment. Due to the direct effects on health and physical performance, all of the compartment models include fat mass. Body composition, specifically body fat percentage (%BF), is of great interest to health and is often negatively associated with individual performance.