VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF THE WEARABLE BIOELECTRICAL IMPEDANCE MEASURING DEVICE

Assessing and monitoring body composition is important for health. It is believed that in the future, wearable devices measuring the body composition, will be more common. The purpose of this study is to compare a wearable bioelectrical impedance measuring device, designed as a band, with a laboratory type of bioelectrical impedance device in order to investigate its reliability and validity. A total of 322 healthy people, 199 men, and 123 women participated in the study. The participants’ body compositions were measured with the laboratory type of bioelectrical impedance device and recorded. Following these measurements, participants’ body compositions were measured three times with the wearable bioelectrical impedance measuring device and data were recorded. The results of the measurements by both the laboratory type device and the wearable measuring device demonstrated a very high degree of correlations with each other. There were no significant differences between two devices’ fat mass measurements in men, in women and in the whole group. When muscle mass data were evaluated, there were no significant differences between two devices’ measurements in men and in the whole group, but there was a significant difference in women (p < .001). When wearable measuring device was compared with laboratory type of bioelectrical impedance device, fat mass measurement results were valid. However, in muscle mass measurements, there was a difference in women. When the wearable bioelectrical impedance measuring device’s reliability was evaluated, it was demonstrated that the device yielded valid results. Therefore, it is concluded that the device will be useful for self-monitoring the body composition