ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition Methodology
This article is part of the Research TopicBioimpedance Analysis: Lifelong Health, Disease, and Sport ApplicationsView all 22 articles
Assessment of Body Fat Percentage in Emirati Females: A Comparative Analysis of BIA vs DXA
Provisionally accepted
Dalia Haroun*
Aseel Ehsanallah- Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
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Abstract Introduction: Obesity is a significant health issue in the UAE. Accurate body composition assessment is crucial for managing obesity-related health risks. This study aimed to evaluate the agreement between bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) in measuring body composition among Emirati females. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 95 healthy Emirati females aged 17-27 years. Paired samples t-tests, correlation analyses, and Bland-Altman plots were used to compare the two methods (BIA vs DXA). Results: BIA significantly underestimated % fat and fat mass (FM) while overestimating fat-free mass (FFM) compared to DXA. The mean difference in % fat was -14.1% (p < 0.001), and the mean difference in FFM was +8.2 kg (p < 0.001). Despite strong correlations between BIA and DXA measurements (r = 0.855 for % fat, r = 0.984 for FM, and r = 0.929 for FFM), Bland-Altman plots indicated poor agreement, with wide limits of agreement. Conclusion: BIA remains valuable for obesity assessment in large-scale studies and clinical settings due to its non-invasive, easy-to-use, and cost-effective characteristics. The results show that the in-built prediction equations cannot adequately predict the % fat, FM, and FFM for this sample. Future research should focus on developing and validating BIA-specific equations tailored for Emiratis.
Keywords: BIA, DXA, Emirati, females, Body Composition
Received: 02 Oct 2025; Accepted: 05 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Haroun and Ehsanallah. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dalia Haroun
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