Body fat scales can be an easy way to track your body fat percentage but they may not tell the complete story about your health. Dehydration is a recognized factor affecting bia measurements as it causes an increase in the bodys electrical resistance so has been measured to cause a 5 kg underestimation of fat free mass ie. View profile view forum posts registered. An overestimation of body fat. Body fat measurements are lower when measurements are taken shortly after consumption of a meal causing a variation. If you are dehydrated the current will pass through at a slower rate and show an inflated body fat percentage.
Accuracy can also vary depending on various factors including. For example on the tanita website tanita is a brand of body fat scales it says under the faqs section that dehydration causes the body fat reading to come out higher than it actually is. What body water is and why keeping an eye on your body water balance is important. That means that your changing level of hydration can have a significant effect on the body fat reading that you get. Statistical treatment by two way analysis of variance for repeated measures revealed that although there were no significant differences between the two techniques of body composition determination under any of the three conditions there was a statistically significant decrease in percent body fat determined in the dehydrated state as compared to the control and hydrated conditions. Research findings by the chicago state university suggested that dehydration of 29 body mass decreases the ability to generate upper and lower body strength.
The most important factor when calculating body fat percentage is consistency. Why its important to stay hydrated if youre looking to build more muscle. This is supposed to eliminate the dehydration factor. How much one should drink daily to stay well hydrated. Studies have found that different body fat scales produce widely varying readings and that these often differ from standard methods of fat measurement 03 19 2017 19. The link between dehydration and fat loss.
It should be noted that one subjects body fat percentage increased by a small amount. Your body fat is pretty water dense so dense in fact that body fat is comprised of about 10 water. If you began your program by measuring your body fat in the morning then during your reassessments continue to measure your body fat in the morning. What happens to your body when youre dehydrated. The researchers recommended that coaches and athletes must understand that sports performance requiring strength and power may be impaired by inadequate hydration resulting in increased susceptibility to injury. So what is the right answer.
Join date mar 2017. Average body fat percentage was 2855 on the normal setting and 2648 on the athletic setting table 4. This is especially significant after completing a vigorous workout routine. 06 13 2013 0215 pm 2. Body fat measurements of the subjects in the bod pod control group ranged from 173 to 46 table 7 and the average was 301 table 5. What is body water.