Body Composition Analysis: The Physics of Measuring What We Are Made Of
Sponsor
The authors want to acknowledge the National Science Foundation, who supported this work through the grants DUE 1141078 and DUE 1431447.
Published In
Physics Teacher
Document Type
Citation
Publication Date
9-19-2019
Abstract
Physics instruction for aspiring health care professionals, medical researchers, and biologists often fails to capture the interest of students.1,2 This is despite the many ways physics is used in research, diagnostics, and treatment. Universities are revising the introductory physics courses to be more relevant to pre-health students.3–6 Part of this process involves incorporating biomedically relevant material into both lecture and laboratory sessions in an authentic way with the physics content. As we will discuss here, body composition analysis (BCA), while probably not on the radar of many physics instructors, is a particularly rich field that uses concepts spanning a remarkably wide range of physics subjects. Body composition analysis measurements are important analytical components in a variety of medical fields including individual patient diagnostics, public health studies of large populations, and studies on the impact of a particular diet or exercise regime. Furthermore, BCA exemplifies how modeling, an important tool that we want to convey in introductory physics, can be useful to extract information from often complex, real-world systems. In addition, the exploration of BCA in the classroom offers various opportunities for laboratory activities, allowing students to personally connect with the topic. As part of the reforms at Portland State University to make physics courses more relevant to pre-health students, course material has been developed on multiple medical applications including a module on BCA covering several topics described here.7–9 We believe further BCA curricula could be designed and incorporated in physics courses from introductory physics to upper level classes for biophysics undergraduate students. Resources relevant to the physical concepts in this article are given in the respective sections and may stimulate the development of more BCA physics curricula.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1119/1.5126820
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/30446
Citation Details
Mylott, E., Kutschera, E., & Widenhorn, R. (2019). Body Composition Analysis: The Physics of Measuring What We Are Made Of. Physics Teacher, 57(7), 446–449.
Description
© 2019 American Association of Physics Teachers.