I’m curious to know what is the best body scale to purchase?

Edited January 13, 20224 yr by Lsoto81

I’m curious to know what is the best body scale to purchase?

I love my Fit Index bariatric scale

I'd say none of them. They're torture devices. I have a love/hate relationship with mine. ?

But seriously I just have a plain old digital scale that is sturdy and is accurate when compared to the gym and my doctor's office. I don't even know the brand.

Although I do think it might be cool to have one of those that uploads data into an App for you and tracks it or that measures body fat percentages and such.

I've found Tanita scales to be very accurate and consistent.

I also got a Withing scale, but it feels less consistent. Weighing 3 times in a row can give you slightly different results.

I just bought a standard scale from Amazon. Lots of people buy these fancy scales that automatically upload your weight to your phone, but it's so simple to just type in your weight into MyFitnessPal or something like that.

You can also buy a body fat percentage scale, but most of those are highly inaccurate because they don't measure your upper body; they just extrapolate from your legs and hope it's the same! There are some where you hold a handlebar out from your body for a more accurate result, but the one I have is a pain to use. You can get a DEXA scan occasionally to get a more accurate result. Don't try to go to the hospital to get one; it will be really expensive. There are private companies that do them for $100-$150.

The most important thing is that when you weigh yourself, it should always be the same time of day (you will weigh less in the morning) and wearing the same outfit (I wear just my birthday suit!). Some people will weigh once a week. I weigh every day, but I make sure I'm focusing on trends rather than the change from the day or week before.

My husband got me a fancy scale for Xmas and it measures body fat and bone density and all that. Downsides though are that it even says on the directions that the best way to measure is with clean bare damp feet (who wants to wet their feet to get on the scale) also, you have to create a profile for each person and then select your profile to get accurate measurement for you. Not deal breakers if you really want that info but I also heard that excess skin significantly interferes with the current that the scale sends through to measure those things. Idk. I have it now and I like that the scale part seems more consistent than my old one but it doesn’t really seem worth the expense if it’s not accurate.

I have a FitTrack Dara scale. I love the data aspect in the app, ability to track multiple family members, and other health metrics. I don't like the app itself, its very clunky. Its a new version and I MUCH preferred the old one. But customer service was great when I made the update and things got a little wonky, so that's a plus. I have not had a body scan to compare to, but weight matches very closely to my Drs scale and is consistent with my regular digital scale. I use it for weight loss and we use it for my son for growth tracking (he has some chronic health stuff) and its been great for both. For sure not necessary, but handy if you're a numbers/data person.

I went to CVS and bought their health brand one. It comes with an app you can sync with your phone. Measures weight, BMI, water intake, muscle, bone Mass and much more. You can track all of that on your phone.

FITINDEX smart scale here, and I have the smart tape measure that goes with it too. I love it. It underestimates my body fat by about 3%.

6 hours ago, vikingbeast said:

FITINDEX smart scale here, and I have the smart tape measure that goes with it too. I love it. It underestimates my body fat by about 3%.

I wonder if they do that on purpose like expensive brand names make us a smaller size so we buy their jeans.

I have an arboleaf scale. I like the tracking feature on it - I can select different days to see how much weight I’ve lost since any time I started using it. For example, I don’t need to know how much weight I’ve lost since the start, I want to know how much I have lost since May 1.

On 5/18/2022 at 5:16 AM, ShoppGirl said:

I wonder if they do that on purpose like expensive brand names make us a smaller size so we buy their jeans.

I doubt it. It's using electrical signals from your legs and can't accurately predict your trunk, so just 3% off is pretty good. I have a DEXA scan every three months and that's what I use (and, oddly, since I lost weight, the DEXA scan is within 0.5% bodyfat of the little throwaway hand-held electrical impedance thing every single gym has.)

22 hours ago, vikingbeast said:

the DEXA scan is within 0.5% bodyfat of the little throwaway hand-held electrical impedance thing every single gym has.)

Good to know!

On 5/20/2022 at 8:00 AM, LilaNicole20 said:

Good to know!

Just go in knowing that everybody is different and every body is different. I am quite densely built so I have to use both the scale and the handheld doodad on "athlete mode" at which point it's close to the DEXA scan. If I do it in normal mode, it WAY overestimates my body fat.

On 5/18/2022 at 8:38 AM, LilaNicole20 said:

I have an arboleaf scale. I like the tracking feature on it - I can select different days to see how much weight I’ve lost since any time I started using it. For example, I don’t need to know how much weight I’ve lost since the start, I want to know how much I have lost since May 1.

I bought the Arboleaf on like March 25 or something like that and I just had to buy new (AAA) batteries for it this morning. My follow-up advice would be to find a smart scale that takes the ion/watch batteries bc they seem to last longer. I have had my other digital scale (Weight Watchers brand) for about 5 years and I've yet to replace the battery.

More food for thought!