Reproducibility of anthropometric and body composition measurements: the HERITAGE Family Study

OBJECTIVE: To determine the reproducibility of anthropometric and body composition measures using the HERITAGE Family Study protocol. DESIGN: Anthropometric and body composition measures were obtained on three separate days within a 3-wk period at each of the four HERITAGE Clinical Centers. SUBJECTS: Sixty men and women representative of the HERITAGE subject population, 15 from each of four Clinical Centers. MEASUREMENTS: Anthropometric measures included eight skinfolds, three girths and one length; and body composition measures included stature, mass, hydrostatic weight, residual volume, and body density, from which relative fat, fat mass and fat-free mass were estimated. RESULTS: Reproducibility as determined by technical error, coefficient of variation, and intraclass correlations was very high for the total sample. For example, intraclass correlations for the total sample generally ranged from 0.95–0.99 for the anthropometric measures, and from 0.97–1.00 for the body composition measures. The results across Clinical Centers were in close agreement with each other and with the pooled data. CONCLUSIONS: The reproducibility of anthropometric and body composition measures using the HERITAGE Family Study protocol is sufficiently high that it should be possible to detect small changes in any of these measures and to determine the genetic basis of these changes consequent to a 20 wk endurance training program.