Assessing abdominal fatness with local bioimpedance analysis: basics and experimental findings.

Objective: Abdominal fat is of major importance in terms of body fat distribution but is poorly reflected in conventional body impedance measurements. We developed a new technique for assessing the abdominal subcutaneous fat layer thickness (SFL) with single-frequency determination of the electrical impedance across the waist (SAI).

Subjects And Measurements: The method uses a tetrapolar arrangement of surface electrodes which are placed symmetrically to the umbilicus in a plane perpendicular to the body axis.