Skinfold Puns

I’m using a burner account. Can’t tell if I’m overreacting or not so I’m posting here for a neutral second opinion.

I take the IBDP, and this is a higher level Biology class.

Part of our curriculum is to know and understand how to use the BMI formula and how to calculate someone’s BMI. Okay, I have no problem with this.

Then our teacher tells that we’re going to be measuring our own height and weight in class so we can calculate our own BMI to help us understand the formula. Alright, I can still rationalise with this.

But then he informs us that we will be using a skinfold calliper to measure our body fat thickness on the inner arms, under the chest and mid back. Girls and boys will go into separate rooms (which is already a problem considering we have a trans kid who our teacher severely misgenders, but that’s another story), we take our shirts off and help each other measure the thickness of our fat, get the data, and use a chart to calculate our body fat percentage.

There were no spare rooms available at the time, so all of us ended up in the same room, and so thankfully, none of us had to strip. Our teacher chose to stay in the room but he was just on his laptop on the other side of the room the whole time and didn’t disturb us once.

Most of us, if not all of us, ended up faking all our data, because 1) this data isn’t going to be used for anything (just calculating BMI is in our syllabus, not body fat % ), and 2) not a single person out of the 18 kids in our class felt comfortable measuring the exact thickness our fat.

All of us felt insecure and uncomfortable, but we’re all way too intimidated by our teacher to speak up, so we just collectively agreed to not do this experiment in secret. By the end of the lesson, we all thought we could leave and just forget that this lesson happened.

Nope.

For the final cherry on the cake, he made us all sit back down and, one by one, announce to the class what our BMI is and what weight category we fell in to. And for the distinctly overweight/underweight kids, he’d make remarks like “You look like you’re in the normal range, maybe leaning slightly towards the more higher/lower side”. I’m sorry, wtf?

I didn’t want to immediately point fingers at my teacher and create a scene, so I asked some other people who are also doing HL bio whether they had to do this practical or not.

My teacher teaches one other HL bio class, and supposedly they had to do this practical too, but my teacher never asked

Just a quick question about creatine, since I'm looking to buy some online today. How does the gained water weight affect one's appearance? And how does it affect skinfold caliper readings, if at all?

Thanks for the responses.

I just got my first pair of calipers a few days ago. Been reading on how to use them from the links here and the material my calipers came with.

Why do all instructions say to use right side of the body? Because I am left hand & foot dominant should I use the left side of my body? Both the husband and I are lefties. And I want to do the most accurate BF% I can.

30M; I have been tracking my body fat percentage using two methods in parallel (each kept on a separate spreadsheet). The two measurements are skinfold & Naval. I take measurements 2-3 times per day.

One thing that seems odd is that the BF for the Naval calculator is steadily increasing, while the skinfold results are steadily decreasing. My weight is also steadily increasing.

A couple factors could be contributing to this, including digestive issues (father had them too) leading to gas, fluid retention, constipation, and the fact that I sing and often breath from the diaphragm, thus expanding my stomach (and to help with this, I don't work out my abs too much).

My question is - How can I be sure that it's just gas/fluid and I'm not putting on pounds in visceral fat?

and managed 32.2mm total!

Last time I had ~39mm, so I've lost 7mm in the past couple of months!

Just needed to tell someone.

Imgur album

Hi, I'm 32, 110 lb and 5'1. I have been working out consistently for my whole life and over the last 12 weeks have become really strict about my eating/nutrition (in terms of only having a 'cheat' meal once a month instead of Friday-Sunday every week). In those 12 weeks I've lost 7 lbs and 7.5 inches overall. Abz are an eventual goal, but overall just wanting to gain muscle and lose fat, like everybody else.

I've been getting skinfold body fat measurements at my gym, and my BF went from 19% to 15.6% in those 12 weeks. I would have guessed my BF to be a little higher, maybe around 20% right now.

The gym just switched to an InBody Bioelectrical Impedance scanner so they will be using that from now on to measure BF instead of skinfold measurements. Got that scan done yesterday and it came back at 29%! 30% is considered obese.. no way. I'm shocked at the % difference. I do have a booty and upper thighs and those aren't measured in skinfolds, but still. This is supposed to be pretty dang accurate. I do have a small frame, but I didn't think it was that small. I followed all of the guidelines - no alcohol or caffeine for 2 days, no meals for 5 hours before, no lotion on feet or hands, etc..

Thoughts? Also how much longer until I get abs? (totally kidding.. kind of) :)

Okay /r/ketogains, I just got my BF calipers and I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. Finding the right spot for most of the skinfolds doesn't seem too tough, and for the abdominal and pectoral sites I've actually been able to get consistent measurements, which would be good enough for measuring progress (even if I've missed the precise spots I ought to measure).

However, I can't get a decent thigh skinfold measurement. My skin there is just very much not flexible. I either pinch next to nothing or I have to grab some of my muscle, which doesn't help me get an accurate measurement.

Is there an alternative site that I could use that would be an equivalent in terms of the calculators? Or does anyone have any tips for this particular issue?

Just got a skinfold caliper and did the Jackson/Pollock 7-point test and got the following measurements:

• Tricep: 8mm
• Pectoral: 10mm
• Midaxilla: 10mm
• Subscapula: 12mm
• Abdomen: 16mm
• Suprailiac: 11.5mm
• Thigh: 17mm

This resulted in a bodyfat measurement of 11.6%! I re-did each measurement and got 11.9%. I am like 99% sure this isn't even close to my bodyfat percentage.

For reference, here are some pics I took immediately after the measurements. Notice especially the excess belly fet when unflexed. What measurement am I probably screwing up, and based on the photos, what would be a more realistic estimate of my bf%? ... Or is it possible to have such a low bf% with that much lingering belly fat for some reason?

P.S. The 3-point caliper test gave 12.4% BF, and the US Navy calculator (admittedly a flawed and simplistic measure) gave 22% BF.

I would note that I have trouble self-measuring the sub-scapula (back measurement) and the thighs (very muscular quads, hard to pull any excess skin to measure).

I had to make 3 Linear regression equations to find the better predictor of the dependent variable body fat between SkinFold,Thigh, & Middle Arm. http://www.viewdocsonline.com/document/k8mmo8

Mid Arm is obviously the worst predictor as the numbers are the erratic but how do I mathematically know what is the best predictor of the three ?

I had an electrical BF measurement done last fall after fasting and it said 27%. Since then, I've lost about 20 lbs and dropped about 4 inches in pants size doing cheaty low carb + mild strength training + lots of biking in mountains. I got a 7 point skin fold test done a few days ago and it came back at 15% BF. I think my weird body shape may be the issue. My legs, upper chest, and shoulders are very muscular, but I still have a kinda soft gut. The caliper machine came back at 8% for my leg, 10% for my back, 14% for my pectoral area, but 22% for my gut. I think I look most similar to the 25% BF male in this BF comparison photoset.

I've been trying to get into keto the past few weeks to drop my remaining 15 or so lbs (200 SW/175 CW/160 GW) and had guesstimated 23% BF for the keto calculator. Should I readjust everything? I've been doing a 30% deficit and put in "lightly active", although this is probably a lie most of the time as I work out 4 days a week and bike commute. I do 1500 cal/day currently.

I had the inkling that everything was off, and I was right. I'm a pretty big guy, and I was losing weight, my Fitbit Scale kept telling me I was losing lean weight. Regardless, I invested in a pair of skinfold Calipers and did everything legit (My GF is a Doctor), and found I was in a completely different category of Health. Also, I'm fairly sure BMI was created by Doctors who focus on Eating Disorders, because My Healthy BMI range would put me at 8% BF.

All bodies are not created equally, and the metrics (BMI) established are Horrible, and most Technoology hasn't caught up with simple Calipers.

TL;DR: Don't trust Impedance Scales and BMI, if you want to get health metrics buy a skin caliper.

EDIT: I switched the Scale to "Lean Mode" and it was nearly correct. Extra Bonus for being in more fit category. So If you're feeling that your Fitbit Aria is off try Lean Mode.

I found skinfold calipers to be the most useful for me to track the progress. I'm about 8-10% BF, so other methods, even BodPod, are quite vague.

I started with Accu Measure Fitness 3000 Personal Body Fat Tester, but it's fully plastic and the way it works looks very unreliable -- if I press a bit harder the measurement can vary significantly.

Recently I got Skinfold caliper by Idass which looks more reliable because it has a spring which in fact controls the measurement.

Interestingly these two calipers show different skinfold thickness. No surprise about it because they could be calibrated differently.

So, what calipers do you use?