If you’re looking for a set of digital bathroom smart scales we’ve tested the best scales that sirelessly sync with your smartphone.
Everyone’s getting fitness trackers , walking more than 10,000 steps a day, donning the trainers and setting out on a jog recommended by RunKeeper or another of the many exercise apps. See: Best Fitness Tracker
Exercising to get fit is a noble aim for us all. Even if you don’t live longer – which you are more likely to do – you should live better as you get older.
But for many of us exercise is as much about weight loss as it is general fitness. All those Fitbit steps go hand in hand with the 5:2 Diet or some other fashionable eating regime – because we realise we’re overweight and need to shed a few kilos. You need to look for the best scales that will help you maintain a healthy weight and look at otherhealth metrics.
A fitness tracker can tell you how many steps you’ve taken and even take a decent guess at the number of calories you’ve burnt in the process but it can’t measure your weight.
A standard set of step-on scales will do the trick, but in today’s world of the quantifiable self we appreciate all our data to be digitally collated and presented to us in attractive graphs and charts.
For this we need a set of smart scales – digital weight-measuring devices that sync with a smartphone app, and keep us fully aware of how much we weigh.
Without a set of smart scales you have to enter your weight into other apps manually each time. Wireless syncing of weight and other health metrics takes away all that bother, and over time builds up a trend analysis of your weight (be it loss or gain).
Being overweight or obese can increase your risk of health problems such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), kidney disease and some forms of cancer.
Note that being underweight also incurs possible health risks, such as brittle bones (osteoporosis), and iron deficiency (anaemia).
Recent studies indicate that we need fewer calories than our parents, due to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Cutting down on unnecessary calories is an obvious start, but the benefits of getting more exercise into your life are even greater for your health and general wellbeing.
Smart scales measure a lot more than our weight. A decent set should also inform us of our Body Mass Index (BMI), lean mass and body fat percentage. These metrics help us understand what our own best weight should be, as it depends on your height as much as your actual weight in kilos or stones.
(When measuring the various health stats remember that these averages are just that, and an indiividual’s best ranges may differ depending on various factors. If in doubt discuss these with your doctor.)
Body Mass Index (or BMI) is a measure that shows if you are a healthy weight for your height. 14 stone (89kg) might be an unhealthy weight for someone of average height (men: 5ft 9in or 175.3cm; women: 5ft 3in or 161.6cm), but perfectly acceptable for a 6ft 5in man.
Doctors suggest that an ideal BMI for adults is in the range 18.5 to 24.9.
25-29.9 is overweight; 30-39.9 is obese; and over 40 is very obese. Less than 18.5 is underweight.
Note that the term ‘obese’ is not a description of what you look like but a clinical term to describe your increased health risks.
(BMI is interpreted differently for children.)
BMI is not always a great indicator of health, because it does not take into account body composition – whether or not that excess weight is muscle or fat.
