Validity of the BOD POD(reg) for assessing body composition in male high school athletes

The purpose of the present study was to cross-validate the BOD POD (BP) measurements of male high school athletes with those obtained from hydrostatic weighing (HW). Additionally, the percent body fat values measured via near-infrared interactance (NIR), bioelectrical impedance (BIA) and skinfold (SF) were compared to HW to determine the validity of these measures. Thirty male, high school athletes (mean age +/- SD = 15.8 +/- 1.0 yrs) volunteered to have their % fat estimated. The findings from the present study indicated that the NIR and BIA instruments resulted in total error values that were too large to be of practical value (TE = 11.0 and TE = 6.5% fat, respectively). The BP (TE = 3.8% fat) produced acceptable measures (TE < 4.0% fat), but compared to all SF (TE = < 3.5% fat) estimations, BP was higher. These data suggest that the BP can produce acceptable body fat measures for male high school athletes, but is not superior to SF.