Court House Gym has brought a medical body scanner to the Island that will help people create exercise and nutrition plans tailored to their needs.

According to gym owner Sue Pell, undue attention is often placed on weight, which can be a misleading gauge to health. A more accurate indicator, she says, is “what you are made of”.

The InBody scanner can distinguish between body fat and visceral fat — the fat surrounding the organs — allowing participants to pinpoint what type of exercise they need to do or whether their diet is more of a factor.

In less than a minute the scanner is able to examine the composition of your body and reveal percentages of body fat, muscle distribution and body water balance.

The scanner also breaks the results into five segments of the body — the two arms, two legs and trunk.

It is also able to distinguish visceral or “deep” fat that can be detrimental to your health and increases the risk of diabetes, cancer, heart disease and even dementia.

Ms Pell told The Royal Gazette: “We want a population in Bermuda that is healthy and so this system is a really good way of knowing exactly what you are made of. Then you can set goals according to that.

“We have a high risk of diabetes in Bermuda. The InBody scanner gives you a really good indication of where to put your energy. People don’t understand that when they weigh themselves they are weighing bones, organs and everything you put in your body that day.

“If you know what you are made of when you are exercising you can see small changes just by having a scan.”

Ms Pell recalled one female client who joined the gym after putting on weight at university.

When she returned to Bermuda she trained at the gym five nights a week but soon became disheartened when she failed to lose weight.

“She was really down in the dumps,” Ms Pell said. “But when we scanned her we saw that she had gone from having 25 per cent body fat to 17 per cent but she had gained 5lbs because her muscle mass had increased so she was much healthier — she was solid.

“She felt fantastic and she is so motivated to reduce her visceral fat now. You can waste a lot of time exercising the wrong way and the problem may be more about nutritional choices.

“We thought it would be good to educate Bermuda. We want to change the mindset of people to stop them judging whether they are healthy by the scale.”

Court House Gym has partnered with the owner of Natural Limited, nutritional therapist Catherine Burns.

She is using the scanner, along with physical trainers at the gym, to tailor programmes for clients on her Nutrifit Programme.

She said: “Some people can see where their fat is but for others it is not so easy. You get people who look similar on the outside but who have very different levels of visceral fat on the inside.

“Where the scanner has been really useful for me is when you have somebody stand on that scale and you get their body composition details you can also get recommendations about what that person should lose and how much muscle they should gain to achieve optimum body composition.

“I had two of my ladies in recently who are a similar size on the outside.

“One needed to improve skeletal muscle mass the other needed fat burning. They needed different types of activity.”

Ms Pell added: “If they are following a programme and have goals, we would suggest getting a scan every four to six weeks.

“Because of the accuracy of the equipment it is able to keep people motivated. All the small changes will show.”

InBody tests are available for members and non-members of Court House Gym, Hamilton.