How does a smart scale determine your water percentage, amount of muscle weight and visceral fats by just standing in it?
In: Technology
You notice how they have metal plates to put your feet on? Thats so they can run a small electrical current from one to the other, passing through your body. They measure the resistance (impedance) and use that to determine how much body fat and water content you have, as both will change how the current flows through your body.
As far as I’m aware, they don’t.
The rationale for these scales is that they should be able to run a small electric current into one of your feet and then out the other and measure differences in your conductivity at different currents and voltages. The current would have to go through your pelvis so it seems reasonable that visceral fat would be close enough to the current to affect it.
But the measurements are skewed in a much more significant way by how damp your feet are, how much of your foot makes contact with the.. contact on the scale. So any result that the scale gives you is a guestimate at best and purely based on your height, weight, and gender at worst.
As far as I’m aware, the only way to get accurate readings of your fat versus muscle is with hydrostatic weighing.
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