Low-cost appropriate technologies for body composition assessment: a field researcher's view

The field setting, as distinct from the clinical and laboratory settings, relates to the study of populations and subpopulations. It can involve either free-living or institutionalized individuals. The concept of 'body composition' goes beyond the traditional assumptions of screening anthropometrics, although it includes many of the same measures. The principal practical considerations for the selection of measurement techniques are ethics and cost. The quantitative considerations are the precision and accuracy of the measures. The biological considerations relate to the interpretation of the measure in terms of underlying body constituents; do the values mean what we hope them to mean?