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An InBody scan is a body composition test that uses bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) to estimate your body fat, lean muscle mass, and body water in about 60 seconds. You hold two electrodes and stand on two more while a small, painless current passes through you. It is the machine you see in gym lobbies and wellness centers, and it costs roughly $25-50 per scan, with an accuracy margin of about plus or minus 3-5%.
Want to track body fat between visits? FitCommit runs an AI body scan from your phone in 60 seconds for $3.99/month, unlimited scans, free first month.
Try FitCommit FreeInBody sends a low-level electrical current through your body via hand and foot electrodes and measures how much each segment resists it. Fat, muscle, and water conduct electricity differently, so the machine uses that resistance to estimate your fat mass, skeletal muscle mass, and total body water.
The standout feature is segmental analysis: InBody reports muscle and fat for each arm, each leg, and your trunk separately, printed on a one-page report in under three minutes. That left-vs-right and upper-vs-lower breakdown is genuinely useful for spotting imbalances, and it is the main reason gyms favor InBody over a simple scale.
The headline numbers most people read are body fat percentage, skeletal muscle mass, and the InBody score. Take the score loosely, it is a proprietary index, not a clinical measure.
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InBody is "good for tracking" rather than "clinically precise", with an error margin around plus or minus 3-5% versus DEXA at plus or minus 1-2%. Independent reviews of BIA confirm it is reasonable for population-level estimates and trend tracking, but less reliable for very lean or very heavy individuals.
The bigger issue is repeatability. BIA is sensitive to hydration, food, and recent exercise. A scan after a salty meal, a hard workout, or a poor night of sleep can swing your reading 2-3% from a fasted morning scan, with no actual change in body fat. That is noise, not signal.
To get usable data, standardize the conditions: same time of day, similar hydration, no workout or large meal in the hours before, no caffeine. Then compare scans done the same way, not a random Tuesday-afternoon scan against a Saturday-morning one.
A single InBody scan typically costs $25-50, and some gyms include it free with membership or as a periodic check-in. That is cheaper than DEXA ($75-150) but more accurate than a home smart scale, which uses the same BIA principle with cheaper hardware and lands around plus or minus 5-8%.
If your gym has an InBody and offers it free or cheap, it is a solid monthly or quarterly check-in, especially for the segmental muscle data. The friction is that you have to go to the machine, and the per-scan cost adds up if you want to track weekly.
For frequent at-home tracking, an AI body scan like FitCommit covers similar accuracy (plus or minus 3-5%) for $3.99/month of unlimited scans from your phone, and is less sensitive to the hydration swings that make BIA noisy. Many people use the gym InBody quarterly and a phone scan weekly.
Accuracy ranges and error margins on this page are stated against DEXA as the reference method and are drawn from peer-reviewed body-composition research. Every method estimates body fat through a different physical proxy (X-ray absorption, electrical impedance, skinfold thickness, or visual analysis), so absolute numbers differ between methods even on the same person, same day. Treat any single reading as an estimate with a few points of error, and track the trend under consistent conditions rather than chasing a perfect number. This is educational content, not medical advice.
The InBody score is a proprietary index where most people fall around 70-90, and athletes can exceed 100. Do not over-read it. It mostly reflects having more muscle and less fat than average. The fat-percentage and skeletal-muscle numbers are more useful than the single score.
InBody runs about plus or minus 3-5% versus DEXA at plus or minus 1-2%. It is good for tracking trends if you scan under consistent conditions, but it is not a clinical-grade single measurement the way DEXA is.
Scan fasted or several hours after eating, well-hydrated but not over-hydrated, with no workout, alcohol, or caffeine in the prior few hours, and at a consistent time of day. BIA is sensitive to hydration and food, so consistency matters more than any single reading.
Usually $25-50 per scan, and often free or included with a gym membership. That is cheaper than DEXA but pricier than a one-time home smart scale or an AI body scan subscription if you want to test frequently.
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