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Abstract

International Journal of Exercise Science 10(1): 87-96, 2017. We investigated a modification of the bottle buoyancy (BB) method in comparison to single frequency, bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) as a valid noninvasive method of percent body fat (%BF) determination. Twenty-eight participants (15 men, 13 women), in counterbalanced-order, completed the BB, BIA, and computerized hydrostatic densitometry (HD) methods. We elected to modify the BB method using a 12.15 L container with participants hugging the container in an upright position. Consistency measures of intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), typical error (TE), coefficient of variation (CV) and total error of measurement (TEM) are reported. Our modification of the BB resulted in less “bobbing” than described in the previous method, and took ~5 to 15 min per participant to complete. Group values (%BF) did not differ (p > 0.05) for BB (20.7 ± 6.6), BIA (21.0 ± 9.7), and HD (20.2 ± 7.2). Strong measurement agreement was observed between BB and HD (ICC: 0.95, TE: 1.80 %BF, CV: 10.7%, TEM: 1.77 %BF). Agreement between BIA and HD (ICC: 0.85, TE: 3.35 %BF, CV: 19.6%, TEM: 3.29 %BF) was lower than BB. Our modification of the BB method resulted in similar measurement consistency with the originating method. The BB method appears to represent a valid surrogate measure of %BF, superior to that observed with BIA.

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