How accurate is a scale that measures percent body fat?

I know it's probably less accurate than a skinfold caliper test, but is at least fairly accurate in measuring percent body fat?

Public Comments

1. If you are speaking of the impedance weight scale they can be completely wrong. If you drink gator aide or some other things before weighing they are way off. Sometimes they can be good and other times bad. The skin fold test is better.
2. The most accurate way to calculate body fat percentage, is in the water. It can be expensive ( I am in Southern California and it was offered at my gym for $75), but if you really want to know the exact percentage... that is really the only way. The other tests are good, but not exact.
3. They are notoriously inaccurate, especially if you are very muscular. Try body fat callipers instead.
4. Yes it is fairly accurate if you are well hydrated. The downside to it is that your results won't be very accurate if your body is apple shaped meaning that the circumference of your waist is over an inch larger than the circumference of your hips. The most accurate way to measure someone's body fat is by hydrostatic weighing (underwater weighing). The only thing though is that it's really expensive to do and requires a trained person to do it for you. There's not a lot of facilities that have the equipment to do this. Plus, not everyone wants to go underwater. For anthropometrics (using a skin caliper), it's hard to measure on elderly people since their skin sags. Plus it helps if you have an experienced person doing the skinfolds for you because if you are not experienced in it, you will not get as accurate results.