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by jaegerpicker 3612 days ago
There is no BMI measurement that use's electrical current. That's a body fat index which is very different and much more precise. BMI is a very poor and ultimately very hard to justify formula that only takes into account weight/height sorted by gender. Things like muscle index and body frame are completely ignored and often lead to very poor BMI's for people who shouldn't have them.
2 comments

Maybe bargl means Bioelectric Impedance Analysis? A cursory internet search also indicates BIA is suspect as a one-time measure.
OK so I have this and I thought that the BMI it computed was based on tracking the fat to everything else based on BIA. But I may be way off here.

https://www.fitbit.com/aria

I see that Fitbit tracks this as BodyFat % not BMI. Not sure if that's accurate.

BIA is pretty bad. Here are ~1300 Fitbit Aria measurements matched against 7 DXA scans. The Fitbit bodyfat data (teal) is just random noise and can barely detect considerable changes in body composition.

http://i.imgur.com/J4Ls2bQ.png

I stopped paying attention to be BMI, I'm 6ft, 190lbs and have a 32" waist and it has me right on the edge of been overweight.

I think given that many people don't realise how inaccurate it is I might even class it as harmful.

You are on the edge of overweight, and you don't realize it because of all the fat people around you.