Body Fat Percentage Chart

A body fat percentage chart is a tool used to assess a person's percentage of fat and muscle mass, also known as a body composition analysis. This is simply a technical term used to identify the different types of tissue that make up the human body. Roughly speaking, there are two types: metabolically active (that is, muscle, bone, and organs) and "metabolically inactive" (aka adipose "fat" tissue).

Weight on a scale is an absolute value that many people use, but it doesn't reveal the ratio of muscle-to-fat in a body. This makes height-weight charts fairly useless for determining actual health, as they can show someone to be overweight when in fact they simply have more metabolic (and dense) muscle tissue. A runner may be down to 10% body fat, but due to bone & muscle structure weigh 200 pounds, and therefore be overweight based on the traditional chart. A body fat chart reveals much more about the actual composition of a body.

In order to really figure out body composition, a medical process known as "hydrostatic weighing" or "hydrodensitometry" may be used. Because this is a complicated procedure, many medical professionals, instead, use a simple "skin fold" measurement test which is almost 100 percent accurate when done by a trained individual.

Many stores now carry scales that can figure out body composition through a process called bioelectrical impedance. Aside from body fat composition, these scales have sensors that also figure out things like muscle and bone mass and how much water you have in your body. Because they are simply electrical sensors on a scale, however, they can be very inaccurate depending on different factors like hydration, food intake, and more. The best way to get an accurate reading is to do the test under similar conditions every time.

Different amounts of fat in men and women are considered to be healthy, and that number varies even more when you take age into consideration. A general baseline is 5 percent for males and 12 percent for females, but this is a very generalized statistic. One of the dangers of using something like the body fat percentage chart to figure out health is a tendency to panic if you find yourself over the average. The fact is, in America the average percentage is around to 15-18 percent for men and 22-25 percent for women. A man who found himself with 10 percent body fat should recognize that while he is over the "optimum health" percentage, he is still healthier than most others.

Even among athletes, who tend to be much lower in body fat than average people, the rates vary widely. For example, a weightlifter may need much more mass to support the free weights than a swimmer would need to cut through the water. According to researchers, men who fall to under 8 percent, and women who go under 14 percent body fat, have no benefits and some possible detriments to general health.

It is true that there is a trend towards a higher body fat percentage among men and women in the U.S. Once men go over 25 percent (women, 32 percent) there is a direct correlation to increased chance of illness or disease. The body fat percentage can help determine where you are based on your body type and age, but will not take into account other factors such as genetic predisposition.

The largest contributing factor to body fat increase or decrease, however, is lifetyle. In spite of all of the miracle diets and exercise programs out there, the only real way to change body fat is to alter the amount of physical activity along with the amount of calories taken in. In short, to reduce body fat, increase activity and decrease calories. That's all there is to it. Using a combination of aerobic and strength training – to both increase muscle mass while burning off the calories – is the ideal regimen. Of course, any exercise program should be accompanied by a visit to the physician.

Women especially face many systemic health problems when their body fat falls too low. The three main ailments, especially found in female athletes, are:

• Eating disorders, resulting in low energy
• Amenorrhea (a menstrual disorder)
• Osteoporosis risk caused by weak bones and increased risk of stress fractures.

This is one of the dangers of crash dieting and over-exercise. Instead of becoming healthy, the body is deprived of the resources it needs to support things like the cardiovascular, endocrine, reproductive, skeletal, gastrointestinal, renal, and central nervous systems.

In short, obsessing over body fat, regardless of what the body fat percentage chart says, can be detrimental to your health. A much better measure is simply if you are able to perform regular physical activity and are happy with how you feel and how you look. Health is not a number; health is a state of mind..

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