What scale should I buy?

July 12, 2005 8:11 AM

I'm looking to buy a new and hopefully not too expensive weight scale. Tanita seems to be the cool brand, but is body fat monitoring worth the extra dollars? I'm not finding much authoritative info on how accurate it is or even how it works so I'm skeptical. Explanations or scale recommendations appreciated.
posted by frenetic to health & fitness (9 comments total)

i bought one at my local supermarket. it is not a cool brand. it is white and has a dial on with numbers that tells me how much i weigh. i think that's mainly what you want from a scale. mine cost about ten dollars, and is plastic/vinyl (wipes clean) with a metal frame.

if you need to know what your body fat is then i guess you need to buy a scale with body fat measurement. if you don't then i guess it is not necessary. i don't, so didn't.

maybe you need a cool brand for some reason (eg you have too many dollars). if so, i suggest you buy a tanita.
posted by andrew cooke at 8:35 AM on July 12, 2005

I bought a no-name bodyfat scale for about $30. According to it, my bodyfat percentage ranges from 20%-40% in a largely arbitrary fashion. I don't know if the Tanitas have this problem.
posted by sid at 8:58 AM on July 12, 2005

Yeah, the body's electrical impedence varies wildly as a function of hydration, electrolyte balance, etc. Consequently, those scales will not give you any precision in body fat readings. At best, maybe you can see a trend in measurements over time.
posted by Galvatron at 9:09 AM on July 12, 2005

Here's Tanita's explanation of how it works

I got a Tanita as a gift. I don't find the body fat monitoring feature compelling. One problem with it is that it changes over the course of the day. If I weigh myself before going on a morning bike ride, I get a reading several percent higher than after the ride (though my weight hasn't changed). This makes sense, because the scale is measuring hydration rather than body fat, but I wasn't really interested in measuring my hydration...

The other problem is that my body fat (as reported by the scale) doesn't seem to change very much over the long term. My weight has varied by about 10% over the past couple years, but my body fat has stayed within the same range of about +/-2%. I see more variance at different times in the same day than across months of measuring at the same time of day.

It may be true that my bodyfat isn't changing (which would surprise me, given the weight changes), but it's not very useful to track a number that doesn't seem to change. Maybe other people see more long-term variation.

My Tanita is certainly much more consistent than the 20%-40% that sid mentions.
posted by aneel at 9:25 AM on July 12, 2005

I have a Tanita, and it consistently describes me as much, much leaner than I think there's any chance I really am. If I were doing it over, I wouldn't pay extra for this feature.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:46 AM on July 12, 2005

I'm as no logo as the next guy, but my experience with the cheap-o scales that Andrew favors is that they can't give an accurate weight, much less body fat.
posted by sad_otter at 11:02 AM on July 12, 2005

I just upgraded from an inexpensive body fat scale to a more full-featured one (both Tanita). The more expensive one seems to work better and gives readings in a narrower range.

Also note that most body fat scales are calibrated around the "average" American body type (ie, a bit soft). If you're already on the thin side, you may want to spend more money on a model with an "athlete" mode that is calibrated for thinner folks.

If you do want to monitor your body fat, consider measuring it with a tape measure the way the Department of Defense does it (inside PDF). This method works surprisingly well.
posted by Brian James at 11:24 AM on July 12, 2005

I bought the most expensive scale I could at walmart, and it works pretty well. +/- 5 pounds depending on how I stand on it. Chepo scales can vary as much as 30 pounds in my experiance. Not usefull for anything other then relative changes if you can manage to stand the same way every time.
posted by delmoi at 12:40 PM on July 12, 2005

Looking through the Tanita listing on amazon is certanly intresting, check out this doozy mesures:

Weight, Body Fat %, Body Water %, Daily Caloric Intake, Metabolic Age, Bone Mass, Muscle Mass, Physique Rating, and Visceral Fat Rating. Capacity: 330lb (150kg) Weight Increments: 0.2lb (0.1kg) Body Fat Increments: 0.1% Athlete Mode

All from two seperate mesurements (impedance and weight). heh. They also have a "bad breath monitor." which is out of stock.
posted by delmoi at 12:48 PM on July 12, 2005