Here’s why investing in a DEXA scan might be the best thing you can do for your health and fitness.
When Tanja Babich, a reporter for a local Chicago broadcast station, stepped on the scale and calculated her BMI, the result was somewhat troubling. At 131 pounds and five-foot-three, Tanja had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 23.2—which the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services classifies as inching towards overweight.
“Your BMI would indicate that you're heading towards the abnormal range, you're heading toward being overweight, because a BMI over 25 is overweight,” Dr. William Harper of the University of Chicago Internal Medicine Department told Tanja. “But wait a second. With this body composition assessment, I can say your body fat is in the 22nd percentile. You're better than 78 percent of the population. C'mon, that's awesome.”
To assess Tanja’s body composition, Harper used a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) body scan analysis. This highly accurate examination uses DEXA technology to unveil a comprehensive picture of how your body weight breaks down into fat, lean muscle, and bone.
For Tanja, the news was not only a relief but also a useful tool for measuring her progress as she makes adjustments to her fitness and nutrition plan. In three to six months, a follow-up DEXA scan can inform her of how changes influenced her body fat, muscle, and bone density and inform her plan moving forward.
Much like it helped Tanja, a DEXA scan can be invaluable for helping you understand your current fitness and nutritional standing, assessing your needs, and fine-tuning your strategy moving forward. Growing in popularity, DEXA scans can be booked at spas, hospitals, and consumer health platforms like Fitnescity.
So why don’t more of us take advantage of this highly useful, widely accessible technology? One reason for hesitation might be price. A DEXA scan will set you back around $135 to $245 per scan. But for those interested in health and fitness, it’s easily worth the cost. A single DEXA scan costs about what the average American spends on health and fitness each month ($155) and a fraction of how much they spend per year ($1,860) or in a lifetime ($112,000). To illustrate this point, we decided to take a closer look at exactly how much Americans spend on gym memberships, personal training, and other health and fitness products.
How much do Americans spend on health and fitness per month?
The global health and fitness industry is booming, fueled largely by health-conscious millennials. The United States is leading the way in the physical activity market, accounting for nearly one-third of the global market with an annual spend of more than $264.6 billion, studies show. With U.S. consumers spending more on health than ever before, the fitness industry market size has ballooned an average of 3-4% every year for the last decade.
Curious to find out what we’re spending all this money on, we broke down the average monthly and annual cost of common fitness services and products below.
Gym memberships
Average monthly cost: $38
Average annual cost with initiation fee: $800 - $2,100
According to 2021 data from Finder, nearly a third of all Americans (32.42%) pay for a gym membership. Unsurprisingly, numbers dipped dramatically during the pandemic, with around 82.7 million adults spending an estimated $8.2 billion on gym memberships in 2020 compared to $34.8 billion in 2019.
A 2021 gym price analysis from RunRepeat found that the average monthly gym membership costs around $37.71 in 2021. However, prices vary based on membership tier and location, with high-tier memberships in cities like New York exceeding $150. When you factor in the initiation fee, you’re looking at anywhere between $800 and $2,100 per year.
Personal training
Average monthly cost for two hour-long sessions per week: $325
Average annual cost: $3,900
Data from Lessons places the national average of the cost of personal training between $40 to $70 per hour-long session, with most clients paying around $55 per session. However, many trainers offer discounts to clients who book in packages of five, ten, or 20 sessions, making the national average spend on personal training around $325 per month or $3,900 per year.
Meal subscription services
Average spend per month (three meal kits for two per week): $120
Average annual spend (three meal kits for two per week): $1,440
According to a 2021 analysis by Money Under 30, the cost of ordering three meal kits for two people comes to around $40 per week, which comes to $7 per serving, $120 per month, or $1,440 per year. The writer also compared the value of different meal delivery subscriptions in a previous article, including Home Chef ($7 per serving), EveryPlate ($5 per serving), HelloFresh ($9 per serving), and Blue Apron ($10 per serving).
Supplements
Average spend per trip to pharmacy: $63
In a 2020 article, The Washington Post estimated that Americans spend $35 annually on vitamins, minerals, botanicals, and other supplements. This breaks down to an average of around $62.73 per trip to the pharmacy, according to data from Statista.
So why aren’t we any healthier?
Outpacing the rest of the world in spending on health and fitness, the U.S. still lags behind when it comes to the general population’s health and fitness level. The Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index ranks the U.S. 35th out of 169 countries and behind most developed economies, even though we’re the 11th wealthiest nation in the world. Compared to other high-income countries, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy rates, highest rates of chronic diseases, and an obesity rate double the average of its peer countries.
Considering the fact that we dish out more money on health and fitness than any other country, why aren’t we any healthier? Here are a few reasons behind our poor health and fitness rankings:
Unhealthy eating
It’s no secret that Americans have unhealthy eating habits. CDC research estimates that fast food makes up around 11% of the average American’s diet, while another study from JAMA Internal Medicine uncovered that one in ten Americans gets a staggering one-quarter or more of their calories from added sugar.
Insufficient exercise
Also driving America’s epidemic of unhealthiness is lack of exercise. These days, the majority of us sit behind desks instead of working out on the fields or on factory floors. The CDC estimates that only 53.3% of Americans get enough aerobic activity, and only 23.2% get enough aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity.
Misinformation
At the end of the day, perhaps the biggest driver behind American obesity is misinformation. Studies show that 75% of Americans didn't know how many calories they had to cut in a week to lose one pound (the answer is 3,500). The research found that only 13% of female Americans knew that strength training alone doesn’t add bulk or turn fat into muscle and less than 40% knew that eggs are a good source of protein. Other research has shown that 2/5 of Americans are exercising less than they should, and only 20% know how much exercise is enough. (FYI: Adults should get 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of high-intensity exercise per week, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines.)
Inaccurate metrics
Furthermore, many Americans continue to lean on unreliable measures of health and fitness levels—like scale weight and BMI. BMI—long used as the standard measure of one’s overall health and fitness, even by the CDC—doesn’t differentiate between body fat and muscle. Because muscle weighs more than fat, BMI tends to classify muscly, athletic people as overweight.
In addition, BMI does not say anything about weight distribution. Individuals with higher levels of visceral fat (body fat around the abdominal area) have a much higher risk of disease and early mortality. That means people with the same BMI could have dramatically different body shapes and, therefore, widely varying risks of disease and early death.
Why a DEXA scan is worth it
That’s where the DEXA scan comes in. A significantly more effective measure than BMI or weight, a DEXA scan is a comprehensive body composition analysis that can help you assess your current health and fitness level. DEXA scan data will paint a precise picture so you know exactly where you’re starting, enabling you to build a more effective nutrition and training plan.
A DEXA scan can be a compelling motivator on your fitness journey. As you make adjustments to your fitness and dietary strategy, routine DEXA scanning can help you monitor the changes in your body composition. For example, if you’ve been working hard to build muscle, your BMI may stay the same or even increase, while a DEXA scan will reveal muscle gain.
We recommend getting at least four DEXA scans per year so you can compare your progress over time. This is actually the most cost-efficient approach: while a single DEXA scan typically costs $155, Fitnescity offers a pack of four at $115 per scan or $460 per year. Compared to how much you may be shelling out for a gym membership ($800), personal training ($3,900), meal subscription plans ($1,440), or even your daily Starbucks order (around $504 for a grande brewed coffee five mornings per week), routine DEXA scanning is well worth its cost for anyone who is interested in optimizing their health and fitness.
Interested? Search for a DEXA scan near me.
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