Body compsition scans
What percentage of you would you say is made up from fat, muscle water? How much fat is around your internal organs? How healthy are your bones?
Just by looking you can guess some of the answers but unless you’re a Pathologist you’re not going to know some of the others!
If you could see inside your body how do you think it could help your health? It could prevent you from developing chronic health problems that’s how!
With some body types it is obvious that there is a high fat percentage but you skinny/ slim types, who rest on your laurels thinking that you are safe, think again! I will liken you to a Finger of Fudge, from the outside all appears all good but inside it is full of fat – not saying this applies to all but just because someone doesn’t carry a lot of visual body fat it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any hidden visceral fat surrounding their internal organs. A high percentage of visceral fat can lead to the development of heart disease or diabetes type 2.
You would expect then that the Toffee Apples amongst us will have a high visceral fat % and yes, probably they will as central obesity around the tummy is linked to the same diseases developing.
We should all inspire to be a crunchy, a perfect covering on the outside and nice and light in the middle rather than an Easter egg with fantastic packaging but once you get through all that the inside is a big disappointment!
How about your bones? The skeleton is surprisingly light. Have you heard the excuse “I weigh more because I’m big-boned? Sorry love, try again, it’s not possible. On average the skeleton will weigh form 2 – 4 kg, not much in the grand scheme of things is it?
Could you be at risk of developing Osteoporosis or thinning of the bones?) If you don’t do any weight baring exercises such as walking, you smoke, are post -menopausal and have a low body mass index then possibly yes.
A healthy body has been measured as your Body Mass Index (BMI) for a long time now; this is used within the NHS and fitness facilities to see if you are underweight, healthy weight, overweight or obese. This is a useful guide but for some it will give an inaccurate result. If a body builder were to step on the scales he will weigh heavy as he has a lot of muscle mass, compared to his height his reading could come out as obese which he clearly won’t be. Body composition is a much more accurate indication of where a person fit s in as regards to having a healthy weight in accordance to their height.
Stevenage Leisure Healthy Lifestyles MOT’s – SoActive
Well, we here at Lifestyles at The Stevenage Arts and Leisure Centre can help throw some light on these questions with the introduction of our new technology, the Boditrax scan. The scanner looks just like a set of bathroom scales, not at all space age or techno phobic, it’s easy peasy lemon squeezy!
Stand on the scales for a few seconds while small electrical impedance goes around your body bouncing off fat, bone and muscle and you’ll have all the answers of what’s going on under your skin.
Recently Stevenage Leisure Ltd worked in partnership with the Stevenage Borough Council to put in a bid to help target the deprived area of Stevenage, Bedwell a healthier, active place to live, hence the name Soactive – Get Bedwell Active!
After a joint effort we got together and applied for funding from Sport England to allow residents of Bedwell to have free Boditrax Healthy Lifestyle MOT’s and 12 weeks exercise for FREE and the Stevenage Community Trust to enable us to buy one of the Boditrax scanners needed for the project f and guess what? The bids were successful! Woo hoo! Get In! Nice One! Result! I could go on but you get the picture, I’m very happy with the outcome!
Let’s face it, some of us look after our cars better than we look after our selves; We give it regular health tests (oil, water, tyre pressure) we take it to the Doctors to have regular full body MOT’s (OK garage, but it’s the equivalent in car world) it gets plenty of exercise and is fed well. We even buy it nice little air fresheners and polish the body work!
When was the last time that you had a health check? Went for a walk? Bought yourself an air freshener?!
If I were to knock on the door of each house in Bedwell and ask if they fancied exercising for free they’d probably look at me as if I was the local nutcase and shut the door. However, if I offer the chance of having a complete health MOT and 12 weeks free exercise based on the tests results, well, why would anyone want to refuse?!
The exercise part includes the gym, suitable studio sessions, badminton, squash, bowls and swimming. If you don’t fancy being inside there are free walks at the Fairland Valley Lakes and Green Gyms which are outdoors in Shephallbury Park and The Towers gardens behind the Swimming Centre.
We are hoping to expand the project to other areas of Stevenage once data has been collected and more funding becomes available
Boditrax scans are available for Lifestyle members at a cost of£10.00 and non-members, £20.00
So far the results have been very interesting, some people have been happily surprised with their results, thinking the worse but seeing that some aspects of the tests are really very good. Others have seen that by tweaking a few lifestyle choices they can easily turn the results into more favourable readings which will have a huge impact on their health. It has inspired many people to become more active and to consider their eating and drinking habits. The great thing is they will have a test at week one and another at week 12 to compare.
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