How To Use A Body Fat Caliper

An Easy Guide To Using Body Fat Calipers

A Body Fat Caliper is one of the most popular and convenient ways to measure the progress of someone undergoing weight management. This tool takes its concept from the Vernier Caliper, which is basically a device used for taking precise measurements.

How Does a Body Fat Caliper Work?

Contrary to popular misconception the body fat caliper does not give readings of the percentage of fat in the body. The Body Fat Caliper assesses body fat by taking precise measurements of skin folds from different parts of the body. These measurements may then be used to calculate how much fat a person has under the skin, called subcutaneous fat.

The measurements taken by the Body Fat Caliper may be fed into an equation to predict body density and body fat percentage. The catch to this is that there are over a hundred different equations you can use to calculate these values, which result in significantly different answers.

It is important that the correct equation is chosen when calculating. Equations vary according to certain characteristics such as age, fitness level, gender and race. Basically, you cannot use the same equation to calculate the body fat percentage of a 25-year-old woman and of a 60-year-old man.

Since having to figure out equations make the process troublesome and inaccurate, it is better to just take skin fold measurements and use this to track progress over time instead of computing body fat percentage.

In order to make sure that accurate measurements are taken, it is best to have someone take your measurements for you. This doesn't mean that you cannot do this yourself, though – the calipers are actually very easy to use.

How to Take Measurements Correctly

Measurements are taken from different parts of the body and will vary between men and women. For men, measurements are taken from the chest, abdominal and thigh areas.

When taking measurements from the chest, make sure that the direction of the skin fold is diagonal. For the abdominal and thigh areas, the fold should be vertical.

For women, measurements are taken from the triceps, waist and thigh. Make sure that the direction of the skin fold for the waist is diagonal. Those for the triceps and the thigh should be vertical.

If your goal is to be more toned and you would like to see how those body fats melt away, the Body Fat Caliper is actually a great tool that you can use.