UNDERSTANDING THE BODY COMPOSITION: A Fundamental Concept By: Ramananda ningthoujam

BODY COMPOSITION Body Composition is the distribution of fat and fat free mass in the body. Fat is the total weight of fat mass (in kg , lb) in the body. Fat Free Mass is comprised of muscle, bone, tissue, water, and all other fat free mass in the body.

WHY BODY COMPOSITION IN SPORTS? It is considered to be an important physical development especially in sports, where there is an advantage of being tall (e.g. basketball) or small (Libero, weightlifting), heavy (sumo wrestling, Shot Put) or light (gymnastics), etc. A tall runner’s longer limbs will enable longer step length (Winter, 1990). Height, Body Mass and BMI seems to be important anthropometric parameters for sprinters (Niels Uth, 2005) Indians have shorter height, lower BMI but higher body fat content. Waist circumference is lower but the chest & abdominal fat is higher in comparing with Caucasians (Misra et al, 2004) Excess fat among Indians generate more inflammatory molecules which significantly contributes to heart diseases & diabetes (Joglekar et al, 2003)

BODY COMPOSITION MODEL 2 compartment system; Fat Fat free Mass Assessment methods using this model: Skinfold thickness Hydrodensitometry Bioelectric impedance

CHEMICAL AND ANATOMICAL MODEL Chemical Model 2- compartmental (Fat and Fat free mass) 3- compartmental (Fat, Bones and Mineral) Anatomical Model 4- compartmental (water, protein, fat , minerals) Dual emmision x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) Computed tomography (CT, CAT)

FIVE COMPARTMENT MODEL Fat, Bones Tissue, Extracellular water, Intracellular, Metabolic Tissue Example: Tanita Body Composition Analyser

ATHLETIC BODY TYPE Athletic or Muscular Body Type who has normal or low body fat even though they are overweight according to the standard chart. Example: Body Builder

LINEAR BODY TYPE Lean, thin or Linear Body type with low amount of fat free mass who can be underweight according to the weight chart and extremely low in body fat yet physically very healthy. Example: Endurance runners

AVERAGE HEALTHY WEIGHT BODY TYPE People of average weight and average body fat Example: Active People

OVERWEIGHT AND OBESE BODY TYPES Big, heavy and soft body types who are overweight and obese with large amount of fat mass and body weight. Example: Inactive elderly

OBESE NOT OVERWEIGHT BODY TYPES People who have too much fat mass and are obese but not overweight due to inactive and sedentary life style. Example: Elder people

DESIRABLE LEVEL OF FAT % FOR DIFFERENT SPORTS

BODY FAT PERCENTAGE BY ACEG

BODY FAT CHART

MEASURING OF BODY COMPOSITION 1) Skinfold caliper Most commonly used in the field of sports for testing body fat. Measures double thickness of skin and subcutaneous fat The common sites for measuring skinfold are triceps, biceps, subscapular, illiac crest, abdominal, thigh, calf

HYDRODENSIOMETRY 2) This method is also quite accurate and considered a gold standard method. Two compartment model Archimedes principles: volume of submerged object = volume of water displaced weight in air - weight underwater = weight of water displaced Wt of water displaced = vol of body Density = Body weight/Body volume % BF = (495/BD)- 450

DEXA (DUAL ENERGY X-RAY ABSORPTIOMETRY) 3 body components (fat, muscle, bone) It allows fat distribution throughout the entire body to be read in a single scan.

BIA (BIOELECTRICAL IMPEDANCE ANALYSIS) It uses a very small electrical signal to measure body impedance. Fat causes impedance or resistance to the signal. The entire procedure takes less than one minute. No need for a trained technician to operate the equipment BIA produces very accurate results.

BOD POD It uses the whole-body densitometry to determine body composition. It is similar in principle to the underwater weighing Body density can then be calculated Density = Mass/Volume

CONCLUSION An athlete can be overweight according to their height – weight table but yet have very little body fat (Welham and Behnke, 1942). Being overweight is usually not a problem, but being over-fat typically has negative impact on the athletic performance. The Health/Fitness practitioners need to educate the general population about the desirable level of fatness. Every technique has there advantages and disadvantages. A combination of these methods may reduce the likelihood of misdiagnosis of Body Composition.

REFERENCES: Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis in Body Composition Measurement (1994), National Institute of Health Technology Assessment Conference Statement, Dec 12 – 14 Niels Uth. (2005), Anthropometric Comparison of World-Class Sprinters And Normal Populations, Journal of Sports Science and Medicine 4, 608-616 Siri, W. E. (1961). Body composition from fluid space and density. In J. Brozek & A. Hanschel (Eds.), Techniques for measuring body composition (pp. 223-244). Washington, DC: National Academy of Science.

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