title: Validity assessment of a portable bioimpedance scale to estimate body fat percentage in white and African-American children and adolescents.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The objective of the study was to determine accuracy of the Tanita SC-240 body composition analyser to measure paediatric percent body fat (%BF).
  
  
  METHODS
  Eighty-nine African-American and white 5-18-year-olds participated in this study. %BF was estimated by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and by the Tanita SC-240.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall %BF was 33.5 ± 10.5% (Tanita SC-240) vs. 34.5 ± 8.7% (DXA). There was no significant difference between the two measures (P = 0.52, average error = -1.0%, average absolute error = 3.9%). The Tanita mean %BF estimates significantly differed from the DXA mean %BF in white boys (P = 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.40) and white girls (P = 0.006, Cohen's d = 0.48), but differences were of small effect. No differences in %BF estimates were found for African-American boys or girls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this sample, the Tanita SC-240 demonstrated acceptable accuracy for estimating %BF when compared with DXA, supporting its use in field studies.
authors.affiliation: Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70808-4124, USA.
authors.forename: T V
authors.initials: TV
authors.lastname: Barreira
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Staiano
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Katzmarzyk
mesh_terms: D015502:Absorptiometry, Photon; D000273:Adipose Tissue; D000293:Adolescent; D001741:Black or African American; D001823:Body Composition; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D017097:Electric Impedance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D044465:White People