How accurate are body analysis machines that rate your muscles and fat levels?

[LockHatter]

I have a David Lloyd club membership and they have a machine where you stand on the scales and grip two metal hand grips and the machine weighs you and somehow analyses your muscle mass and fat mass in different parts of your body.

If use the E-gym for weights then the weight machines do strength tests and give you a profile of your strength including an age rating which I presume means “across all our customers of your gender the weights you can lift but you at the average for a [25] year old.

you end up with analysis like in the two screen shots below. Does anyone know how accurate this is?

I would say pretty inaccurate. But if you want to see change over time make sure you use the same machine each time and I think that would haves some sort of accuracy?

Thanks. Do you mean use the same body analysis machine each time? I do and I suppose therefore the trend data probably has some validity even though age estimates etc may not. I am mainly interested in whether the body fat and muscle mass percentages are accurate from these machines.

This might be useful: https://www.healthline.com/health/body-fat-scale-accuracy#pros-vs-cons

I recently did a DEXA scan and a gym "body analysis" machine like you describe on the same day - very different results on lean muscle mass. So might be good to track changes, but not so accurate in absolute terms.

They aren't. Seriously, they are almost complete garbage. The only thing they can feasibly do with any degree of accuracy is track a trend over time. I work in health science and strongly suspected they would be trash, but a few years ago I did cave to the marketing and buy well reviewed one. Just as I thought, the readings swing hugely with everything from hydration levels to the angle the handle is held. Apparently they've gotten slightly better in recent years but you can do as well or better with a £1 tape measure.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0026ngn?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

There's a whole Radio 4 programme discussing the accuracy of smart scales.

I think they're great for seeing trends, as PPs have said.

My David Lloyd PT said they are pointless so I haven’t bothered trying them. She’s a weightlifter with 15 years experience.

Probably ok for seeing trends but that’s about it.

I use them for tracking my weight. The rest of it, I just look at the general trend, as long as it's going in the right direction, that's good enough for me.

What does a trend mean in context of your measurements on a body scale?