Does anybody know how reliable the Bio-electrical Impedance Method for measuring your body is?

I heard that it's less accurate than the sonic thing they do with your arm.

The hand held models that you can buy in the sporting good stores are fairly accurate. There is a variance within a couple of points depending on certain factors such as hydration, when you exercised last. For a person who is measuring their own progress, this is a consistant tool.

I would love to do a experiment to measure exactly how percise they are. Maybe during my Master's program.

Cool, the one I was looking at is pretty crazy. It's a scale with metal pads for your feet AND hands. You enter the standard Height and age info and stand on it and let it run voltage through you.

I think I'll pick it up.

Our scale has the metal pads for feet. The only issue is that about a quarter of the time it gets an error with no reading (presumably because you don't have the pressure on the exact right parts of your feet). Stepping on it with damp feet definitely helps.

Damp sounds like it would skew the reading. It's measuring the impedance of the body, which would be altered if you change the conductivity of your body. At least as far as my understanding goes.

I don't know if they're compensating for that, or if it's just a super cheap scale, but the instructions actually said to make sure your feet were damp before stepping on it.

With the foot pedal ones, you have to take your socks off.