Assessing fat mass from a body composition perspective: a critical review
- Autores: Raquel Vaquero Cristóbal
- Localización: Cultura, ciencia y deporte, ISSN 1696-5043, Vol. 18, Nº. 56, 2023, págs. 4-13
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
The estimation of fat mass and fat percentage has been used both in the field of health, due to its relationshipwith various diseases; and in sport, due to its relationship with sports performance. However, the advantages anddisadvantages of the different methods of estimating body composition are rarely taken into consideration whenevaluating this parameter, including dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA or DXA); hydrodensitometry; airdisplacement plestimography; electrical bioimpedance; anthropometry; 2D/3D/4D scanning and ultrasound, as wellas whether they are indirect or dual indirect methods. Nor do most studies and evaluations take into considerationthe different models from which body composition can be approached, with methods that use a chemical, molecular,cellular, tissue or segmental approach, the most commonly used being the molecular and tissue models. All this leadsto the fact that the different methods can be used to estimate adipose mass, fat mass and lipid mass. Althoughthese concepts have been treated as synonyms, there are differences among them that are addressed in this article,as well as what the different assessment methods estimate: lipid mass or adipose mass. It concludes with the practicalimplications of all the above for fat mass estimation.
