Aria body fat percentage questions

[CarrieV]

Hi, I have a question on whether it is really possible I'm made up of 33% body fat (according to the aria scale).  Here are my stats:

51 year old woman

5' 6"

132 lbs.

currently wearing a size 6

33% body fat according to the charts means I'm obese.  I don't feel obese.  I know I need to lose 8 more lbs. to be at my ideal weight that I feel best at, but this 33% body fat has been pretty consistent the whole time I've been dieting.  Even after I lose 8 more lbs., I do not think it will be much less than 33% body fat on the aria scale.  I'm definitely not lean, so I know selecting the "lean" category in the settings would not apply to me.

I'm fine with just ignoring this and feeling good about the lbs. I've already lost, but every morning it's still a little depressing to weigh yourself and think how is it possible that 33% of my body is pure fat.

I weigh myself bare foot, dry feet every morning before I shower.  I do not move the scale.  It is sitting on the floor in my bedroom, same spot as always.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[johneric8]

Courtney-

I have to honestly ask you-   Are you EXTREMELY athletic with the body of an athlete?

Do you look like a swimsuit model?

The reason I ask this is because for women 14 to 20% is considered to be in the "Athletes"

range.   So,  if you're 20%  that is what you should look like in most cases,  or be very skinny.

I'm not saying you're not,  I have no clue what you look like.

An average women would be 25-30% body fat,  and I know well what that looks like because that is where my wife is at..  She looks thin and healthy but has very normal amounts of body fat for her age.   I attached an image of my wife whom is at 28%.  ( she is on very right- without  glasses..)

[Courtney14]

Lol, I'm no swimsuit mode, but yes I'm athletic. I run, swim, do yoga and eat lean. Ran 3 Half Marathons and 1 full Marathon this year. I just had a check up and on the dr scale it said 20% body fat. I told the dr I wanted to lose 20 lbs and she said she didn't know where from. I never questioned the Aria scale before when it says 29%-33%, because I know the lowest women should get is 15%. It's not all about the numbers, it's how you feel and like how you look. However when we're buying $120 scales, it shouldn't be off so much. I think I'll exchange mine and see if I get a different reading.

[tall-guy]

Yeah... unfortunately until the laws of physics get changed (lol) this type of scale will never be accurate. Straight engineering: this scale measures electrical resistance through the bottom of your feet and that's always going to vary more with hydration than body fat. Like I said in an earlier post - when your body fat reading gets high on this scale, treat yourself to a pedi. That's all it's really good for (and for weighing yourself, which is what I rely on it for).  You can get a good set of plastic calipers for a few bucks, and that's faaaaar more accurate.

[MatthewFitbit]

@tall-guy It's important to remember that body fat measurements are always going to be an estimate. There are no methods of body fat measurement which can be perfectly accurate, and different approaches will always provide differing results. This means that there is never a definitive number expected when performing a measurement.

The Aria's analysis involves sending a small electrical current through your body to measure how much resistance that current encounters (fat resists electricity more than other tissues or bone). Calipers pinch a small portion of your body to measure that area's volume - this is a fairly archaic method, and generally considered to be less accurate because different people carry body fat differently. Again, because these are completely different methods of estimation, and we would not expect their resulting estimates to ever match. You shouldn't assume the Aria's measurement to be incorrect simply because it doesn't match results from a different method like calipers.

We believe that the Aria presents customers with a relatively narrow range of accuracy, and should be more than sufficient to help set and achieve weight-loss goals. Rather than focusing on the percentage itself, I'd suggest paying attention to the change over time as your Aria's measurement increases or decreases. This is the best approach to setting and achieving those goals.

[tall-guy]

I agree with the general trend-following message, but calipers (a.k.a. Skinfold method), when used in multiple locations, not just at one are repeatedly demonstrated to be far more accurate than the Bioelectric Impedence Analysis (the scale's) method, which yields +/-8% accuracy at best case when BIA is done properly (from wrist to ankle, to avoid the increased error introduced by plantar tissue - wrist/ankle is chosen because the skin is thin and therefore the current can cross to internal tissue without introducing surface effects). Introducing plantar tissue creates a lot more variability, even just before and after a shower or bath.

For reference see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2082845/ for a detailed analysis of the various methods (there are many).

[James7705]

Mine went up 15% overnight and stayed that way. It seems many others have had the same fault. Great if yours work as they should but many don’t

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[jdc115]

Hi johneric8 -

This thread was started due to strange results that the scale gave so it is not likely that people that are happy with the scale are going to post here.  Until I started having an issue with the scale, I never knew about this thread or forum. Only after having it started to malfunction did  I try to search here for a solution. But if you read the whole thread, there is obviously something strange going on with the scale.

My scale has given me these measurements while my weight stayed almost the same.  But the change came after I moved and connected to a new WIFI:

before move 1 - 78.8 KG - 18.2%

after move 1 - 78.3 KG - 34.6%

lots of resetting done and eventually it started to measure back around 18 to 19%

before moved 2- 73.5 KG - 17.4%

after move 2 - 73.3KG - 25.4%

My weight has been between 71KG to 79KG but my scale has jumped around from 18%-19% range to 34-35% range and now 25-26% range.

I think the 18-19% range is likely the correct one.  But even if I am delusional, something is not right as I can't have jumped around from 18% to 34% back to 18% and now to 25%.  

[johneric8]

I totally believe that people own Aria's that are giving them trouble that is for sure.  I guess because mine seems very accurate for my wife and I,   I have trouble understanding all the issues.

I will be honest though,  I sincerely believe that in general many people that have posted in these aria threads have a skewed understanding of BMI %.   In America,  it's very common  for people to feel comfy in their own skin only to be labeled "OBESE"..   No one wants that,  but the facts are many of us are carrying a much higher fat percentage than we care to admit...    The average women has very little muscle compared to a typical man and that means a much higher fat percentage. 

The Aria,  Calipers,  Dunk Method,  ETC,   are not 100% as we all know...

[jboyle1115]

 I understand the delicate subject people are dancing around with regards to the body fat % being skewed.   However,  as a nurse for 20 years and the last eight years being with a cardiologist as the original poster to this thread I do understand body fat percentage and body image vs. BMI.   I have paid money for the most accurate body fat assessment and the Aria scale is 10% off, period.  But as I’m now a personal trainer I did appreciate the feedback  on some others troubles with in accuracy in the scale.   I will continue to send my clients to have the paid body fat and bonus bone density scan done. 

[johneric8]

I don't argue with any points you're making,  but I have a question for you-   If you say that the Aria is off by 10%,  how would explain my body fat always being between 6 and 10% then?   If it's off by 10% would that mean I'm really 0% body fat or as much as 20% ???

I'm also a personal trainer and understand all the methods,  but I'm really curious how you can throw a number like 10% out there when my Aria is very close to other methods such as dunk and calipers?  None seem to be perfect,  and I know that bone mass is typically 15% of our weight so this doesn't account for very much of our overall mass.

[jdc115]

If it was off by 10% than I would be fine with that.  It is that it can be off by 100% and that change seems to happen by just simply changing WIFI networks.  Maybe my 25% reading is correct (give or take 10%) but then it doesn't explain why for years my scale was giving me a reading of around 18% or why it jumped to 34% when I changed networks.  

Many on this thread all had the same issue which never seems to have been addressed. I believe a few that had scales still under warranty have exchanged them. For myself, I was told I could go buy a new scale. But there doesn't seem to be any desire for them to investigate why this happens and see if it can be fixed via a firmware update.

[jboyle1115]

 The scan I’m talking about takes seven minutes it’s like an x-ray and it also calculate your bone density so the original part of the post regarding the bone had nothing to do with the part you mentioned .  It’s actually too accurate and you have to take off 6.4% body fat because it accounts for  all fat even between your organs.   So I know mine is 11.9 in the Aria says it’s 21.   Also, I’m as lean as I’ve ever been even when I was bodybuilding.  

[johneric8]

Thats amazingly low percentage for a women who isn't in competition..   Out of curiosity,   do you think that is too low for a walkaround percentage?   The reason I asked is because my doc told me at 49 years old, 165 lbs 6 ft tall and 7% that I might want to consider gaining fat!   I know,  I thought it was crazy,  but I somehow fell into (too close to essential fat) range...   Of course I'm not going to listen to him in this case cause I never get sick and feel great...    I'll be honest,  I agree with what others have said,  it's not about fat percentage once you are healthy,  but it's nice to keep track of,  when you are mixing things up all the time like I do with cardio and weights and diet..

[jboyle1115]

 It was not by design it was because I had braces put on for TMJ and I couldn’t eat regular consistency food for eight weeks.   Also, every time they tighten them every six weeks there’s another week worth of not eating regular food again.   At this point I teach one or more classes a day and personal train 2-3  three classes a day and I’m just eating as much protein as I can,  I am very lean and I can’t seem to put it back on 

[kyash9916]

I'm also having this issue with mine and tried talking to customer service and was basically told I was wrong and that my scale works just fine. 

However I know that is not right as I have been keeping track on everything I eat and drink and have used another product that measured me completely different than fitbit did. So now I'm just at a loss at what to do.. 

I think that its just time to get a different scale because we got this one for the body fat percent option and it isn't working right. 😞 

I don't know what else to do since customer service basically said I was wrong and didn't help at all. 

[Dvacurlz]

I’ve never been able to get help. I’ve given up. My scale doesn’t sync over WiFi. Hasn’t in over a year. I’m about to switch to the new Samsung scale unless I hear back ASAP from Fitbit.

Too bad. I’ve had so many of their products since 2014.

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[Xale]

If there isn't anutging that need fixing, how come do I have a reading above 41% body fat. I'm 1,90 m tall (european here) and 93kg. Do you really mean I'm made of 40kg of fat? I dont think so. Plus it's very funny to see I was 25,6% on jan 9, 2017 and then 41,8% on jan 11, 2017. Do you imply I produced 15kg of fat in 2 days?

If there isn't anytging that needs fixing, how come do I have a reading above 41% body fat. I'm 1,90 m tall and 93kg. Do you really mean I'm made of 40kg of fat? I dont think so. Plus it's very funny to see I was 25,6% on jan 9, 2017 and then 41,8% on jan 11, 2017. Do you imply I produced 15kg of fat in 2 days?

Also my gender and height areare correc registered.

Moderator edit: merged reply

[jdc115]

Did you reset or change your wifi connection?

Sent from my iPhone

[Dvacurlz]

Multiple times

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[jdc115]

Did the change happen after you changed the WIFI connection? It seems to be an issue with no fix. I have had my scale give me 3 very different %fat readings and they all involved moving where I connected to a different WIFI/Internet Provider. I went from 18-19% to 34% down to 23-24% and all the changes occurred when I moved and had to reset my WIFI connection. I am quite certain 34% is wrong (I'm 178CM and 73KG). 

 If you scale is still in warrant, I would suggest you call the support and see if you can change it. If not, not much you can do, they will tell you that you can buy a new one.