How reliable is the Army tape test?
The tape test is not accurate and the Army has known this for several years. It would do everyone a lot of good if they would do away with this outdated method and implemented something more up to date. Here is an excerpt of an article that came out of Tripler Army Medical Center (Hawaii) back in June of 1999. The Use of the Body Fat and Tape Test Should Be Reexamined Clearly, this test can appropriately identify soldiers and sailors who have weight problems. However, the test is known for its many flaws. The body mass index (BMI) is a much more reliable measure and is supported by volumes of data as the standard instrument of choice among experts within this field. (The BMI = kg/m2, or weight in kilograms divided by height in inches squared). Dyer and Cutter” and Keys et al.46 as well as others4748 have provided data to document the utility of the BMI, the accuracy of the BMI, and the fact that the BMI has a high correlation with body fat, and have pointed out that it is the most comm
