LipoWise: A New Generation of Skinfold Calipers

The skinfold caliper is a non-invasive anthropometric technique regularly used to assess the nutritional status of clinical and non-clinical individual samples for evaluation of body composition percentage. A skinfold caliper allows obtaining important anthropometrical data using a simple and portable tool, with a non-invasive and cost-effective procedure. Using regression equations, the skinfolds thickness measurement allows estimating the individual body fat. However, this approach has some limitations and no evolution has been registered on the skinfold calipers recognized in the literature and used for health, sports and nutritional evaluations. Moreover, studies on the skinfolds compressibility pattern have not been explored because the available skinfolds calipers do not have not this feature which needs to be complemented by data storage tools, namely for large scale studies. Efforts for developing new algorithms, for example, if based in dynamic tissue response are also limited by the traditional skinfold calipers. The integrated LipoTool system intends to contribute to those goals due to its novel characteristics. The LipoTool features are briefly described. The paper highlights the innovative capacities of LipoTool, and explores preliminary studies of the tissue compressibility pattern in order to open new methodology for assessing other parameters rather than the skinfold evaluation based in the use of a high diversity of regression equations to estimate body fat percentage. Different prototypes have been used by people in the health and nutrition areas and, the feedback has been very positive as a powerful tool for assessing and tracking, training and study. Now, the next step is to carry on research in order to develop new models and different application domains. In this work a very exploratory attempt is presented. The LipoTool will be soon in the market and it has been registered as LipoWise. Copyright © 2015 IFSA Publishing, S. L.