It’s statistically correct, but not specifically correct. It doesn’t tell you for certain that you, personally, have too much body fat (or too little fat/muscle), but it’s a good indicator.
And that’s really what you’re looking at; you’re trying to figure out if you have more body fat than you should.
Harpendens skin fold calipers–when used by a trained professional–will give you a more accurate measure of your overall body fat percentage. And InBody scale will measure bioelectrical impedance (essentially running a low-voltage current through you and measuring impedance) to give you a fairly accurate measure of your body fat percentage, but how well hydrated you are can significantly affect the reading. Hydrostatic underwater weighing was long been the gold standard for measuring body composition. BUT dual x-ray absorbiometry (DEXA) has overtaken it, because it’s significantly easier on the person being tested.
That said, body fat alone doesn’t tell you if you are actually healthy. You can be fairly low in body fat, and have horrific cardiovascular fitness. And being exceptionally heavily muscled, (say, 200kg, at 7% body fat; Mr. Olympia levels of muscle) doesn’t appear to be healthy on your joints and heart either in the long term.
It’s statistically correct, but not specifically correct. It doesn’t tell you for certain that you, personally, have too much body fat (or too little fat/muscle), but it’s a good indicator.
And that’s really what you’re looking at; you’re trying to figure out if you have more body fat than you should.
Harpendens skin fold calipers–when used by a trained professional–will give you a more accurate measure of your overall body fat percentage. And InBody scale will measure bioelectrical impedance (essentially running a low-voltage current through you and measuring impedance) to give you a fairly accurate measure of your body fat percentage, but how well hydrated you are can significantly affect the reading. Hydrostatic underwater weighing was long been the gold standard for measuring body composition. BUT dual x-ray absorbiometry (DEXA) has overtaken it, because it’s significantly easier on the person being tested.
That said, body fat alone doesn’t tell you if you are actually healthy. You can be fairly low in body fat, and have horrific cardiovascular fitness. And being exceptionally heavily muscled, (say, 200kg, at 7% body fat; Mr. Olympia levels of muscle) doesn’t appear to be healthy on your joints and heart either in the long term.