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What does the DEXA body scan tell me?
The Bodyscan DEXA report gives you a great deal of information, much more than just your body fat percentage, which isn’t a great measure of body fat anyway. Watch this video to understand why.
In terms of body composition, the report shows the following for each arm, each leg and trunk (and head) and total:
- Fat mass
- Lean mass
- Bone mass (bone mineral content)
- Total mass (fat + lean + bone)
The scan also gives you these indices for your whole body:
- Body fat percentage (BF%, fat mass divided by total body mass)
- Fat Mass Index (fat mass divided by height-squared)
- Android/gynoid ratio (BF% in the android (belly region, male fat area) divided by BF% in the gynoid (hip-thigh-buttock region, female fat area)
- Fat Mass Ratio (% Fat Trunk divided by % Fat Legs)
- Trunk-to-Limb Fat Mass Ratio (fat mass of the trunk divided by fat mass total of the legs)
- Visceral Fat (this is an estimate of internal fat in a section of the android region).
- Lean Mass Index (total soft-tissue lean mass divided by height-squared)
- Appendicular Lean Mass Index (soft-tissue lean mass on the limbs divided by height-squared)
The scan will also provide an indication of your bone density (BMD), with these data points for each arm, each leg, left-side ribs, right-side ribs, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, pelvis and head. Note you should not track bone density with whole-body scans. The bone density results are just an indication. Watch this video for more information about DEXA body scans and bone density.
At your Baseline scan we will plot the most important numbers from your report against our own percentile tables to put the numbers into perspective and give them meaning. These tables represent the biggest DEXA body scan dataset in the UK – more than 17,000 body scans over seven years.
