The assessment of the amount of fat in the human body from measurements of skinfold thickness.

A simple method of assessing quantitatively the fat content of the human body, which could be used not only in laboratories and in hospital, but in field studies and in general medical practice, would be invaluable. Methods in use at present, based on measurements of body density, body water or body potassium, can be applied only in the laboratory and usually to small numbers of subjects. Several previous papers have suggested relationships between one of the accepted methods of determining body fat and a simpler technique which could be widely applied. As early as 1921, Matiegka (1921) formulated an equation for calculating body fat from measurements of surface area and six skinfold thicknesses. Brotek & Keys (1951) were the first to use the relationship between skinfold thickness and body density for assessing fat content. The skinfolds chosen were not ideal and their formula has not been widely used. Pascale, Grossman, Sloane & Frankel (1956) in the USA produced an equation, and PaPizkovL (1961 a ) in Czechoslovakia a nomogram, for predicting fat content from skinfold thicknesses. Steinkamp, Cohen, Gaffey, McKay, Bron, Siri, Sargent & Isaacs (196 j ) gave predictive equations based on measurements of body circumferences and skinfold thicknesses on 167 subjects in California. The only comparable attempt on a British population, to our knowledge, is a study on twenty-four hospital patients, measurements being made of total body water and skinfold thickness (Fletcher, 1962). Information about a wide range of body types in population groups in Britain is required. The present paper describes a study on 105 young adults and 86 adolescents. By means of results from measurements by anthropometry including skinfold thicknesses and body density, an attempt has been made to formulate simple equations for the prediction of the quantity of fat in the body. The subjects were of varying body build-thin, intermediate, plump, but very few were obese.