Why GHBCI?

A few years ago, Tim Lohman and I were working on a book all about body composition assessment. This book, ACSM’s Body Composition Assessment, was published by Human Kinetics in 2020. While this book is useful, we noticed that there were still many needs in the body composition assessment area.

Students and practitioners in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition typically don’t receive extensive training in body composition. Most students take a 'Fitness Assessment' course where they may have a unit focused on body composition.

Some students have more training in the form of a course completely focused on body composition. Unfortunately, this amount of training often doesn’t give a solid theoretical base or enough practical experience to develop an effective body composition assessment plan for a wide variety of populations. The same is true for many practitioners.

Because of this, Tim and I created this Institute and developed a training course that offers a path to certification as a "Body Composition Pracitioner". Our goal is to provide practitioners with unbiased and accurate information on the various methods for assessing body composition. Practitioners should be able to conduct testing with good accuracy and precision (See our article below on Precision). They should also be able to develop an overall body composition assessment plan for any individual based on their situation and goals. In addition, they should be able to develop measurement procedures for a facility that ensure accuracy and inter-tester and intra-tester reliability. Finally, practitioners should be able to critically evaluate new methods that are developed and identify those with high error rates.

We have developed a certification course for professionals and will be working on more courses for other areas of body composition. If you are overwhelmed by the different body composition methods and don’t know whether companies who are selling assessment devices always give accurate advice, please come to us for unbiased body composition information. Take our course or reach out for a consultation.

By Laurie Milliken, PhD, FACSM  CEO GHBCI