Now *THIS* I have to try!!!
Bodyskanner machine shows unwanted curves Island pharmacy first in North America to have machine
JIM DAY
The Guardian
I set off Thursday morning to research a story armed with the bare essentials: notepad, pen — and light-coloured underwear.
The specific brief attire was required, I was informed, to avoid interference while I got sized up in the bodyskanner — a new 3-D scanner at Murphy’s Health Education Centre in Charlottetown.
Dark undergarments, it seems, might fool the laser technology used in this machine — a funky, large box that looks like a cross between a tanning booth and a department store change room.
When I stepped inside, a cheery female recording instructed me to strip down to nothing but a smile and my light-coloured shorts. The woman then told me to proceed to stand on the circle in the middle of the box and grasp the metal hand grips.
Lasers — bright lights able to scan up to 200,000 data points in less than 30 seconds — circled my body from head to toe. I imagined myself entering the Louvre in Paris after hours, perhaps tripping off an intricate alarm system.
The state-of-the-art scanner captured my body mass index, body fat percentage and also printed out measurements (accurate up to 1/16 of an inch) of my height, weight, chest, hips, thighs and calves.
I’ll spare you the details, but comparisons to Olympic gold medal swimmers and Greek Gods were not forthcoming.
I was about the 30th person to use this particular bodyskanner, which is only in its first few weeks of operation here.
I stepped in simply to get a feel for the machine for my article. Most others, though, appear interested in getting scanned to assist in assessing their shape.
Nichole Sweeney, a pharmacist with Murphy’s two-year-old Health Education Centre, said the machine offers detailed information as to where weight is coming off or going on as well as where a person may be beefing up with muscle.
The appeal of the bodyskanner, she believes, is in allowing people to be measured up out of view.
“Without being poked and prodded by somebody with a measuring tape and calipers,’’ she explained of a notable bodyskanner benefit. “It’s very private once you’re in the booth. Nobody else can see you.’’
The scan takes about 10 minutes and costs $40.
Murphy’s is the first pharmacy in North America to adopt the bodyskanner to use for health applications.
The machine has more commonly been used elsewhere to scan an individual’s body to produce precise measurements from which custom sewing patterns are produced.
