So I am going to talk about body fat and how it is read and what your score or percentage means in terms of overall health and why it is important to stay in a healthy range.
So the first thing to talk about is how to check your body fat reading. Well there are a number of ways, you can buy an electronic reader or use a machine that will take your BMI, Height, Weight and body fat% but this can be inaccurate if you are carrying a lot of water weight or excess muscle as it often doesn't take into account muscle mass for your BMI and this can affect the body fat reading a little.
Instead I prefer to use callipers to measure body fat, they are accurate and when you take a 5 point reading or 7 point reading then it only helps with the accuracy. They are also easy to use and cheap to buy online, costing no more than 5-10 pounds for a basic kit.
It is best to take it early in the morning before you shower in order to prevent water weight becoming an inaccuracy in the test. It also means that if you become bloated later in the day it wont affect it either. So where do you take the readings? Below are the 1,5, and 7 reading areas to use.
1. Stomach, 1 hands width from the belly button on either side
2. Upper chest, around 1 inch below the collar bone
3. Back, just below the shoulder blade on either side
4. Tricep, about midway down the back of your arm between the shoulder and elbow
5. Thigh, 1 palms width up from the knee
6. abdominals just above the belly button
7. 5th rib, just below the armpit and level with the fifth rib, to be taken on your side (so come down from the armpit until level with the 5th rib)
A five point reading is usually accurate enough but if you are thinking of going for a competition then I recommend using all 7.
Once you have the readings, add them up, divide them by the number of measurements you took and you get your score. Then insert your score into a body fat table which will compare your score with your age group to give you an accurate body fat reading.
So what is a healthy range?
According to most score charts if you are between the ages of 16 and 21 and male then your healthy range is 8-16 on your average score which is a body fat of 8.5-15.5%.
If you are 16-21 and female your healthy range is between 10 and 17 which is a body fat range of 19-24.8%.
This may seem weird that a similar reading would give a higher percent by almost double, but that is because the female body holds more fat internally, below the skin and muscle to protect the ovaries and womb during pregnancy and child bearing age. So that is why it is higher, but don't worry that is still a lean score when you consider the leanest possible score in terms of percent is 11% for females.
If you are a male scoring in the 21+ body fat percentage and are male you are creeping into the health risk stage and over 25 is a serious health warning. For females if you score over 30% then there is the same risk.
Here is a picture of some callipers and a scale to check your score against: (click to enlarge)
