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| Amazon accurately calculates body fat percentage |
A new study shows that the body fat percentage scanner on Amazon works better than other methods of calculating body fat percentage.
Body scanning is a feature of Amazon's Halo Band subscription service that was announced last August.
The Halo Body function works via the smartphone camera. The user takes four pictures of his body and then combines these pictures into a 3D image.
Next, Amazon uses machine learning to calculate your body fat percentage.
When Amazon launched Halo, Amazon did an internal study to verify functionality.
The results show that this tool can become a reference for people who want to get more physical information.
Compared to body weight, body fat percentage can more accurately assess a person's health status.
Two people of the same body type may also have a different fat mass compared to their total weight, and therefore may pose different health risks.
A little body fat is important. However, a high percentage is linked to health problems such as heart disease and diabetes.
The percentage of body fat that is considered healthy varies between people of different ages and genders.
Amazon Halo body:
The study used data collected at two sites: Massachusetts General Hospital and Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center.
It included 134 participants from different institutions, including 82 women and 52 men. Among this group, 81 were White, 32 were Black, 9 were Asian, 4 were Hispanic, 1 were Indian and 7 were mixed races.
The percentage of body fat for each person in the study was calculated using an X-ray technique that shows the distribution of body fat called dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).
The results of these tests were compared to the Amazon system and five measurements of body fat. The study found that the percentage of body fat calculated by Amazon Halo Body is closest to that calculated by DXA.
It should be noted that the Halo-Body study is similar to the body fat calculated from DXA based on BMI or BMI.
BMI is usually used as the first estimate of body fat and is calculated based on height and weight. But usually a muscular person's BMI indicates overweight, even if the bulk of the weight is muscle.