How does body composition scanning work?

• Total skeletal muscle mass
• Total body fat in kilograms
• Total body fat percentage
• Visceral fat
• Total body water
• Segmental muscle and fat analysis
• Bone mineral content
• Basal metabolic rate

The technical term for this is Direct Segmental Multi-frequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (DSM-BIA). It separately measures the impedance (resistance to alternating electric currents) of the trunk, arms, and legs of our body. This new measurement concept measures the resistance of the cross point of two flows and takes the resistance values of the arms, legs and the body trunk.

Why is this important?

The human body is composed of five cylinders: the arms, the legs and the trunk. With the technology of the InBody, the trunk is directly measured. The trunk is occupied by various internal organs and its metabolic characteristics are different from the other parts of the body. Although difficult, it is important to precisely and directly measure the trunk, since the trunk has very low resistance compared to the arms and legs.

Controlling the path of high frequency waves is very difficult. This technical know-how is an InBody specific specialty and has been accumulated over many years of experience in the field.

Electric current has a different penetration force depending on frequency. Low frequencies travel down the flow of the external surface water and are unable to penetrate the cell wall, thus measuring the water content outside of the cell. A higher frequency will measure the water content inside of the cell because it penetrates the cell wall. By using a diverse set of frequencies, the InBody can measure water contents inside and outside the cell separately.

Also, with the usage of several different frequencies, you are able to provide more information on the body composition because more resistance values are attained. The InBody 770 is based on 6 different frequencies that measure each segment, providing a total of 30 separate impedance values

When measuring impedance through any type of electrode, contact resistance occurs and it is important to control the contact resistance, in order to correctly measure the resistance in the body.
The InBody uses a unique method of electrode placement.

The 8-point tactile method separates the current and voltage starting point, thus measurement always begins at a fixed point in the wrists and ankles. This is advantageous as the contact resistance from the skin has been removed.