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Lecture Notes

The first measurement that we'll talk about for how we measure body composition is again a very simple technique called the skinfold technique. And here we measure subcutaneous fat at several sites. In the picture you can see the clinician or researcher pinching the skin and fat that sit right under the surface on the back of this young girl's arm with a pair of calipers, and that's essentially what this test does. You measure that with the calipers, you do it at several sites, oftentimes they're different for men and women, and then you use an equation to estimate total body fat based on the subcutaneous fat located in each of these sites. It's easy to perform, but it does require an experienced tester to do this method reliably.