Hydrostatic body composition testing is a highly accurate method for measuring body fat by submerging a person underwater.

Benefits of Hydrostatic Testing: This method separates lean mass from fat, providing a true assessment of health risks based on real data rather than just weight on a scale or chart.

Testing Frequency and Importance: Regular testing every 60-90 days is recommended to monitor body fat percentage, which is a good indicator of overall health and can help prevent diseases related to obesity.

Test Procedure and Requirements: The test is quick, taking less than 10 minutes, and requires participants to wear tight-fitting clothing and bring a towel.

Scheduling and Cancellations: Appointments can be scheduled online or through the event host, and pre-paid tests are non-refundable if canceled or missed, though credit is given for future visits.

Why Hydrostatic Testing?

What is body composition? Simply stated, it’s what you’re made of: bones, blood, tissues, fat, water, and everything else that together comprise your body.  Body Analytics uses a three part testing system that weighs lean mass (muscle, bones, tissue) , fat and water.

Why does body composition matter? Knowing your body composition allows you to accurately assess your health and wellness levels, and tells you precisely how your body changes in response to what you do.

Body composition enables you to accurately pinpoint changes in your body down to specific quantities of fat loss and muscle gain, which helps set realistic goals and measure meaningful progress.

Let’s say you’ve lost five pounds. If its five pounds of fat, that’s GREAT!  But if it’s five pounds of muscle that you’ve lost, you’ve probably decreased your strength and lowered the amount of calories you can intake on a daily basis. However, you would never really know how much of your weight loss is fat versus muscle without measurement of your body composition. That’s why we stress not using a home scale to gauge your overall health and progress.

Body composition is a more accurate indicator of health than BMI.

Body mass index (BMI) has traditionally been used as a proxy for an individual’s health. Devised over 160 years ago, BMI is a number calculated from a person’s weight and height. Based upon that calculation, a person is then categorized as underweight, normal, overweight, or obese.

Unfortunately BMI has some significant limitations. BMI is not a measure of actual body fat, but simply a ratio of weight and height. Because muscle weighs more than fat, very muscular individuals with low body fat are frequently incorrectly categorized as overweight or obese. Similarly, people who have high body fat percentages but have lost muscle tissue may appear healthier according to BMI because they lost muscle weight. Thus, by disregarding an individual’s ratio of actual body fat to muscle tissue, BMI can be highly inaccurate in assessing an individual’s level of fitness and health. Many health insurance companies still use BMI today and in turn health insurance costs go up because of the inaccuracy.

Body composition provides insights about visceral fat whereas BMI does not.

Visceral fat is a type of fat located in your belly, between your organs. Visceral fat is highly correlated with obesity-related diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. In contrast, fat under the skin – known as subcutaneous fat – is not necessarily harmful to your health. It is quite possible for individuals who appear thin and have a healthy BMI to carry stores of high-risk visceral fat. Consequently, BMI can provide an inaccurate or misleading assessment of an individual’s risks for obesity-related diseases and disorders. In fact, studies have found that waist size measurements are better correlated than BMI with type 2 diabetes, simply because waist size measurements account for the presence of visceral fat. 

Body Analytics hydrostatic testing method helps take the guess work out of what you are really gaining or losing.