My first experience of writing a book was such that once it finally appeared I swore I would not write another. However, time heals, and after a few years had passed I entertained the notion of writing a second book, primarily because I was convinced that there was a need for a volume that summarized, in one place, useful information about noninvasive methods of body composition analysis. The problem, however, was that I wasn't really the best person to write the book because my own experience is limited to only a couple of the available methods. I decided therefore, that the best route would be to try and bring together a group of authors with the appropriate expertise and edit together their combined knowledge into a single text. I thought that, by editing a book, rather than writing it, I could still see the final volume realized, but that the process of producing it would be far less painful and stressful, and at the same time better by far than what I could achieve alone. And, indeed, this proved to be the case. But it was only like this because I had an excellent and co-operative group of colleagues on whom I could rely to deliver their chapters, and exceed my ambitious demands (that invariably clashed with examinations and teaching commitments) by only modest numbers of months.