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Evaluation of anthropometric equations to assess body-composition changes in young women^1,2,3

¹ From the Occupational Physiology Division, US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Natick, MA, and the Division of Human Biology, Department of Community Health, Wright State University School of Medicine, Dayton, OH.

Background: Healthy young women who engage in an exercise program may lose fat that is not reflected in body weight changes because of concurrent gains in fat-free mass (FFM).

Objective: This study addressed the question of how well anthropometry-based predictive equations can resolve these changes.

Design: Several widely used skinfold-thickness- or circumference-based equations were compared by using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry to study 150 healthy young women before and after 8 wk of Army basic combat training (average energy expenditure: 11.7 MJ/d).

Results: Women lost 1.2 ± 2.6 kg fat ( ± SD) and gained 2.5 ± 1.5 kg FFM. Fat loss (r = 0.47), but not FFM gain (r = 0.01), correlated with initial fatness. Thus, for many women who lost fat, body weight did not change or increased. Fat loss was associated with a reduction in abdominal circumference but this alone was not a consistent marker of fat loss. One circumference equation and one skinfold-thickness equation yielded the smallest residual SDs (2.0% and 1.9% body fat, respectively) compared with the other equations in predicting body fat. The sensitivity and specificity of the best equations in predicting changes in percentage body fat were not better than 55% and 66%, respectively.

Conclusions: These data suggest that for women, anthropometry can provide better estimates of fatness than body mass index but it is still relatively insensitive to short-term alterations in body composition. Not surprisingly, the circumference equation that includes the most labile sites of female fat deposition (ie, waist and hips instead of upper arm or thigh) proved to be the most reliable.

Key Words: Anthropometry • weight reduction • body composition • dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry • body circumferences • skinfold thicknesses • exercise • generalized equations • women • military personnel • physical training • fitness program