Gadget: Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale

IT was strange to see three generations of my girlfriend’s family fight to be first to step on the scales.

Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale

£99.99 from www.amazon.co.uk, for more information see www.fitbit.com/uk/aria

Each was determined to see who had the lowest percentage of body fat after a Mother’s Day curry. There were gasps as one particularly vocal participant discovered she was one third lard, while I smirked at my 12 per cent body fat reading (just slipping into the “athletic” category).

To put this into context, healthy men between 20-40 years old should have between 8-19 per cent body fat and women in the same age group, 21-33 per cent blubber. So it wasn’t all bad news for my girlfriend’s relative.

While body fat competitions may not be the ideal way to spend the tail-end of Mothering Sunday, especially as the results nearly left one mother in tears, such competition is actively encouraged by the Fitbit Aria Smart Scale.

These wifi scales track weight, body fat percentage and BMI (body mass index), transmitting the results wirelessly to a free Fitbit cloud-based online account. This turns boring weight stats into multi-coloured graphs, allowing comparisons with family or Facebook friends (if you so choose) and creates award badges for reaching specific goals. The aforementioned body fat competition was made possible by the Aria automatically recognising up to eight different people.

There’s also the option to track progress on a Smartphone or pair up the scales with Fitbit’s wireless pedometer-like device (an extra £70) if you want to track calories burned and even sleep patterns.

Although £99 is a weighty price for scales, the combination of convenience and competition inspired some healthy rivalry in our house at least.