Understanding Tanita Body Composition Readings

Many of us focus too much on our weight as a key indicator for our overall health. While weight is one factor to your body's overall condition, body composition monitors provide a number of other measurements that provide greater insight into your current fitness level. Tanita is one of the leading makers of consumer body composition scales. Replacing your standard electronic scale with a Tanita Body Composition Monitor can give you tremendous insight into your physical fitness and the essential information you need to stay healthy. You can then track your readings, progress, and body composition goals in HealtheHuman™.

In order to provide you the most accurate measurements possible, you must input your age, height, and gender into your Tanita scale. The monitor will then provide the following body composition measurements and calculations:

• Weight: Your total body weight. Maintaining a proportionate, healthy overall body weight is an important factor in your physical fitness. Excessive weight can become a strain on numerous systems within your body.
• Body Fat %: Total body fat percentage as a percentage of your total body weight. Maintaining a healthy level of body fat is essential to staying in shape as well as supporting the vital functions of your body. Healthy levels of body fat help your body regulate your temperature and store vitamins while unhealthy levels of body fat increase your risks of serious medical conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and others.
• Body Water %: Total body fluid as a percentage of your total body weight. Staying properly hydrated is key to the operation of many organs and systems in your body. A Tanita scale can help you monitor your overall body hydration levels. The general target values for men are 50% to 65% and for women are 45% to 60%.
• Muscle Mass: Total weight of your muscle. Muscle tissue burns 50 times more calories than fat tissue, so building and maintaining muscle mass is an essential part of staying fit and keeping your metabolism levels high. For people trying to loss weight, measuring and monitoring your muscle mass is as important as your overall weight. While muscle weighs more than fat, it also increases your daily caloric requirements, which helps accelerate weight loss.
• Physique Rating: Personalized physique rating, from 1 to 9, based on the ratio of body fat to muscle mass in your body. The scale ranges from 1 (small-frame, high-fat) to 9 (very muscular, athletic).
• Daily Caloric Intake (DCI): Estimated daily caloric intake (DCI) required to maintain your current weight. This calculation utilizes the other measurements from your body composition to calculate the estimated number of calories required to maintain your current weight. If you are trying to lose weight, monitoring your daily caloric intake (DCI) combined with HealtheHuman™ Daily Diet and Nutrition Tracking can become powerful tools in helping you achieve your weight loss goals. Only available on InnerScan™ models
• Basal Metabolic Rate: Estimates the total number of calories required to maintain primary body function while at rest, such as respiration, circulation, and other organ functions. Approximately 70% of the calories consumed by your body on a daily basis are used for your basal metabolism. Increased activity and muscle mass will increase your basal metabolic rate, burning more calories throughout the day. Only available on Ironman™ models
• Metabolic Age: Provides a comparison of your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) with the average for your age. You want your metabolic age to equal or be less than your current age.
• Bone Mass: Provides a weight for your bones, including the level of calcium and other minerals in your bone tissue.
• Visceral Fat Rating: Total amount of visceral fat, up to 50 lbs. The visceral fat reading is the total amount of fat in the abdominal cavity and surrounding organs. Maintaining healthy levels of visceral fat reduces the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. Low risk ranges from 1 to 12. Higher Risk ranges from 13 to 50.

Tracking Your Body Composition Scale Readings

Creating Body Composition Goals

Our Tanita Trackers are integrated into the goals feature in HealtheHuman™, so you can set a goal value for each of your body composition readings from your monitor and track your progress. Setting personal goals on your body composition is a great way to measure your progress and keep yourself motivated. Whether you want to reduce your total body fat percentage or increase your muscle mass to 160 pounds, HealtheHuman™ and your Tanita Body Composition Monitor can help you reach your health and fitness goals. Learn more about Goal Tracking in HealtheHuman™.

Charts and Reports for Your Body Composition

You can also create online and printed reports for all of your body composition readings as well as use our online charting and analysis tools to quickly chart your progress over time. Get more information on Charting, Analysis, and Reports.

Buy Tanita Scales from OnlineFitness.com

Many Tanita Body Composition scales are available at www.OnlineFitness.com. Start tracking your readings today in our body composition trackers.

InnerScan™ Models

• Tanita BC533
• Tanita BC534

Ironman™ Models

• Tanita BC548
• Tanita BC549
• Tanita BC552
• Tanita BC553
• Tanita BC554