Body fat caliper
There is great emphasis based on personal health, fitness, and weight control. Many people are concerned with these issues. One relevant index of weight and fitness is body fat percentage. The weight of a person was frequently used as a factor to represent a personal health condition. It is widely known that the human body stores 50 percent or more of its fat under the surface of the skin and that as the percentage of total fat increases, the thickness of the subsurface layers of fat increases in substantially equal proportion. Thus, if assessments are made of the subsurface layers by measuring the thickness of skin folds, it is possible to estimate the total amount of fat accumulated by the body. A rate of body fat for a person has becoming to be an important factor to represents the health condition for the person. Body composition, and in particular percent body fat, is a well-recognized measure of physical health. Obesity is a worldwide health challenge occurring at alarming levels. Obesity and overweight greatly increase the risk of many diseases. Obesity is a probelm of considerable concern among both doctors and the patients. Obesity cannot only be a severe health hazard, but also makes the obese person feel unattractive causing social disfunctions. Accordingly, the ability to diagnose the existence of and determine the degree of obesity in human patients is desirable. Hypertension; type 2 diabetes; dyslipidemia; coronary heart disease; stroke; gallbladder disease; osteoarthritis; sleep apnea and other respiratory problems; and endometrial, breast, prostate, and colon cancers have been associated with higher body weights. A measurement of the amount of fat in a person's body can be valuable and useful for several reasons. Fat measurements can be a valuable aid in monitoring body tone. Such measurements provide a means for monitoring and indicating the progress of a fitness program. An indication of a quantitative progression can be psychologically valuable as a means of encouraging continued participation. Accordingly, various types of method and apparatus for measuring an amount of body fat have been developed and proposed, including caliper measurements, underwater displacement measurement, and bioelectrical impedance measurement. Many procedures for testing body fat percentages are expensive and require elaborate equipment and procedures. These typically include underwater weighing, ultrasound, electrical impedance, and other procedures. These are normally limited to use in hospitals, clinics, health clubs and the like due to their expense and complexity. Customary methods for measuring the ratio of fat to lean tissue include hydrostatic body weighing. This method is used to estimate body fat by calculating body density from the measured weight value under water as a method for accurately measuring body fat in vivo. One alternative procedure to these elaborate methods of testing body fat percentage is the measurement of body fat percentage by a skinfold caliper. The principle behind the use of skinfold calipers is that the amount of subcutaneous fat correlates to percent body fat. Skinfold measurements are taken by pinching the skin and the flexible subcutaneous layer of the fat below the skin at selected positions on the body. These measurements are referenced to a table to determine the relative percentage of fat. With a skinfold caliper measurement, after the skin is pinched by an operator without inducing pain to the subject, the thickness of the skinfold is measured with the caliper. Typically, skin-fold measurements are taken by pinching the skin and the flexible subtissue below the skin at certain selected positions on the body and the limbs. For women, these measurements can be taken at the back of the arm (tricep) and at the hip (iliac crest). For men, additional measurements may be taken at the front of the arm (bicep) and at the upper back (subscapular). The sum of these measurements is then compared with a chart to determine the relative percentage of fat. Caliper measurements of skinfold thickness have been used with various equations developed to predict body density and percent body fat.
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