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Comparison of air-displacement plethysmography with hydrostatic weighing and bioelectrical impedance analysis for the assessment of body composition in healthy adults^1,2,3

Background: Over the past decade, considerable attention has been paid to accurately measuring body composition in diverse populations. Recently, the use of air-displacement plethysmography (AP) was proposed as an accurate, comfortable, and accessible method of body-composition analysis.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare measurements of percentage body fat (%BF) by AP and 2 other established techniques, hydrostatic weighing (HW) and bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), in adults.

Design: The sample consisted of healthy men (n = 23) and women (n = 24). %BF was measured by AP, HW, and BIA.

Results: In the total group, %BF_AP (25.0 ± 8.9%) was not significantly different from %BF_HW (25.1 ± 7.7%) or %BF_BIA (23.9 ± 7.7%), and %BF_AP was significantly correlated with %BF_HW (r = 0.944, P < 0.001) and with %BF_BIA (r = 0.859, P < 0.01). Compared with HW, AP underestimated %BF in men (by -1.24 ± 3.12%) but overestimated %BF in women (by 1.02 ± 2.48%), indicating a significant sex effect (P < 0.05). The differences in estimation between AP and BIA and between BIA and HW were not significantly different between the sexes.

Conclusion: AP is an accurate method for assessing body composition in healthy adults. Future studies should assess further the cause of the individual variations with this new method.

Key Words: Adiposity • body fat • body density • humans • validity • reliability • body composition • hydrostatic weighing • bioelectrical impedance analysis • air-displacement plethysmography

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