Advantages of Phase Angle in Evaluating Physical Vitality Level

Phase angle (PhA) has become a sudden focus of attention in recent years. However, much remains unknown about its relationship with health indicators. If it is an indicator derived through bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), its meaning as a simple health indicator can probably be established. In fact, an indicator of senescence called “vital age” has been proposed. However, this vital age is derived from multivariate factors and so cannot be called a simple indicator. Accordingly, while presenting the term physical vitality as one determinant of health, we defined physical vitality in the sense of conceptualizing the body’s internal control mechanism power that governs the life force. That power regulates health, which is an indicator of the driving force (life force) of human life. In this study we compared phase angle in high school sports club members and general student controls, and showed that the height of the phase angle in club members reflects their physical vitality. An attempt was then made to position phase angle as an indicator of physical vitality. Specifically, we evaluated the phase angles of individual club members by constructing a span evaluation chart with age of phase angle and applying individual club members to that evaluation chart, with general high school students as a control group. With this ability to evaluate the phase angles of individuals, rather than showing that phase angle was high in all club members we were able to grasp the physical vitality levels of health factors possessed by each individual.