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A Trial of the Ponderax Skinfold Caliper


AW Sloan
JH Koeslag

Abstract

Skinfold measurements on young men and on young women, with a simple caliper (Ponderax Mark 11), available free to medical practitioners, and with a widely used research caliper (Harpenden), showed good agreement, but at skinfold measurements above 20 mm, it was found desirable to add 5% to the Ponderax reading. When total body fat was predicted from two selected skinfold measurements in young men and from two others in young women, the Ponderax caliper gave lower figures than the Harpenden, but the difference, even in the moderately obese, was considerably less than the error inherent in the prediction. The Ponderax caliper is recommended for clinical use.

SAMJ 47(1), 1973

Journal Identifiers


eISSN: 2078-5135
print ISSN: 0256-9574