The South Korean company Samsung have recently launched a new and exciting electronic device that allows you to measure your body fat very accurately and carefully. It works with the use of four electrodes which the person using the device touches with his or her thumb and a finger of each hand. The electrodes send a small and safe electrical current through the body that measures the drop in voltage as the electrical current goes up one arm and then down the other. Fat naturally makes up 17% of the human body and does not have much water in it and thus it provides little electrical resistance.

To use the device correctly the users must put in their body mass and then it can calculate the fat percentage in the body. If the device is used carefully it should give very accurate results.  Samsung is aware that people may try to cheat by not pressing hard enough with their finger and so to stop this the person using the device has to slowly increase their finger pressure when it sends out a test voltage to calibrate itself.

The importance of getting a good body fat reading can not be underestimated because often by just stepping on the bathroom scales you can't really get a good idea of what your healthy weight should be. The body fat value is the best was to measure fatness and obesity which is a major source of illness and disease.

Many doctors and fitness trainers are resorting to manual body fat measurement devices because they give the best information about a persons excess fat levels but it can be time consuming and awkward tomeasure all the different parts of the body for the fat levels and so this new electronic device could have great commercial and practical potential.